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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29368296">365 Days</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/minniesundays/pseuds/minniesundays'>minniesundays</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst, Character Death, Explicit Language, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Second War with Voldemort, Werewolf Hermione Granger</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-02-12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-02-12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-13 05:20:58</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>5</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>47,630</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29368296</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/minniesundays/pseuds/minniesundays</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>After Hermione Granger was attacked by a werewolf, she realized a lot could happen in a year.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Hermione Granger/Draco Malfoy</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>21</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>74</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. [one]</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>The last fic I wrote was years ago back when I was fresh faced in The Hunger Games fandom, so this was different...happy reading :)</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <strong>0 Days After</strong>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>She was running. Where, she had no clue, but she needed to get out of there. Smoke was curling inside her lungs, coughs escaping her mouth every couple of steps. She nearly gagged as her dinner threatened its reappearance. Sweat coated her every limb, dripping into her eyes and a frustrated arm reached up to wipe it away. Blood was soaking through the side of her shirt, sticking it to her ribs as she ran. It was dark, the full moon only granting her a thin veil of luminescence.</p><p>Stumbling over twigs and rocks, she was nearly sent face first into the ground, but she righted herself. Her feet pounded against the ground, crushing leaves beneath her feet and likely alerting others of her surroundings but her mind was not steady enough to pay a second thought to the idea of being found. She had to get out of there.</p><p>Gasping for air as she continued to blindly stumble her way through the wreckage, she realized her wound wasn’t slowly leaking blood anymore, instead a steady flow began to paint a trail along her skin as it soaked the waistband of her jeans. <em>Fuck. </em>She must’ve torn the skin further in her near-falling stunt. <em>Clumsy, fucking idiot</em>.</p><p>She just needed to get beyond the anti-apparition wards so she could get herself to their base. Gritting her teeth together to contain the wail that threatened at her lips, she ran faster, thanking adrenaline each time her feet slammed into the ground.</p><p>She strained to pick up noises beyond her loud panting and footsteps and realized with an inaudible gasp that she was indeed being followed. Picking up the pace even more than she realized was possible, her muscles tensing so tight they seemed transformed into stone. Just a couple more steps, she told herself over and over. Just a couple more steps.</p><p>She could see the glimmer in the air ahead of her, a slight reflection in the corner by the large tree. She was <em>almost </em>there. Her relief began to sink into the wrinkles of her brain before her foot snagged on something and she was sent sprawling into the muddy ground. Her ribs groaned under the pressure and the wound in her side screamed in protest as she rolled over to attempt to stand.</p><p>The snapping of a twig to her right filled her ears and her head snapped up to look over. Before she could process the creature entering her vision, it pounced. She heard a scream and she scrambled to gain purchase in the ground, her fingers clawing into the dirt beneath her. It was too fast though, too fast for a silly girl to escape and she realized the screams filling the air were her own.</p><p>The beast pushed her further into the mud and she almost laughed at the fact that a true-to-life imprint of her body would likely be left behind even after it mauled her until she was nothing but blood and bones. She could barely breathe, her chest struggling and grasping at any air it could get, too much weight was on top of her though, so she settled for wheezing repeatedly.</p><p>She wanted to fight back, in fact her whole body was <em>aching</em>for her to fight back, something to get the large wolf-like animal off of her, but it dug her further into the ground and she tried to resign to accepting her fate.</p><p>A scream tore through her throat as the werewolf bit into her shoulder. At the noise, its claws tore a pathway across her face and neck. She almost thought about the scars that would be left behind if she lived to see another day after this attack.</p><p>As the blood pooled around her body from both her werewolf-induced wounds and the battle wounds she had earlier, she wiggled her fingers, desperately hoping a nonverbal <em>accio</em>would be enough to bring her wand back to her. She had lost it in the battle earlier to an <em>expelliarmus</em>, but she was hoping the Death Eater who bested her had long forgotten about her wand.</p><p>The werewolf was still on top of her, its snout inches away from her face, red-tinted drool – likely stained from her own blood – dripped down onto her face. Its lips curled into a vicious snarl, bloody teeth making their appearance, emitting a low growl that would haunt her sleep. If she survived, that is.</p><p>Suddenly, cool wood greeted her fingers, magic swimming back into her body, her fingers tightened around the wand. She stretched her wrist in order to point the wand at the dark fur hovering above her, straining her throat to push a <em>stupefy</em>through her lips. The werewolf flew off of her, colliding with a tree several feet away from her, its body crumbling into the ground. She’s surprised that worked. <em>Stupefies</em>only work on weak werewolves. He must be a pup.</p><p>Pushing herself to her feet despite the protests from her muscles, she stood up, her feet barely able to hold herself straight so she pushed a hand against a nearby tree, stumbling closer to the barrier she had spotted earlier. Blood was steadily filling her vision, completely obscuring any view she might’ve gotten from her left eye, so she was forced to squint to see where she was going. At a speed that rivaled a snail’s, she practically crawled her way across the forest. Once she was safely past the wards, she thought of Grimmauld Place and apparated her bloody and bruised body back to safety, hoping desperately that someone would be there when she arrived.</p><p>She felt the familiar twisting and pulling and landed against the cold wood floor of Grimmauld and let her breath even as she realized she made it miraculously without splinching herself. Groaning as she tried to stand up, the vision in the eye she could still see out of twisted with black stars and she fell back down. Frantic footsteps sounded from the staircase and she let relief seep into her bones as her adrenaline seeped out of her bloodstream, a broken sob filling the air around her as she cried.</p><p>“Fuck,” a male voice from above her as she felt someone kneel next to her, warmth nudging against her bleeding shoulder. A pain filled cry tumbled from her lips and the man next to her began yelling for medical help just as her eyes began to flutter. “Hey, no, stay awake, c’mon. Don’t fall asleep on me, can you look at me?”</p><p>She forced her eyes open and followed the noise, focusing her eyes on the man next to her, although she could only see out of her right eye – although even the eyesight in that side was stunted as she struggled to focus on his features. Black hair, that’s all she could see, his entire face blurry and smudged. She felt a smile stretch across her features as the pain slowly ebbed from her body and sleep began to pull her under. She could faintly hear the man’s protests, begging her to stay awake, but she was too far gone, too close to the sweet release of unconsciousness for his voice to take hold. She greeted the darkness that met her like an old friend.</p><p> </p><p>
  <strong>4 Days After</strong>
</p><p> </p><p>“She’s waking up, go get Pomfrey.”</p><p>Groaning, she tried to open her eyes, but was met with a sticky glue-like feeling. She rose her limbs to attempt to rub her eyes and was met with a blinding pain shooting through her arm, climbing through her bloodstream like spider webs, branching off and spreading to her chest and her ribs and her legs and her head. Her head became so heavy that she went straight into darkness once again.</p><p> </p><p>
  <strong>5 Days After</strong>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>Blinking, she was greeted by a dim light hanging over her head from an old ceiling that looked like it could use a good dusting. She tilted her head to scan her surroundings and spotted a slumped figure on the chair next to her bed, the head covered with messy black hair resting on her bed near her hand, its hand clamped tightly to hers, even in sleep. She squeezed, attempting to wake him up. He made a noise in the back of his throat, dosed with sleep, before his head shot up.</p><p>When his green eyes met hers, his lips turned up into a sad smile. She almost cried just looking at it, she probably would’ve if she wasn’t so damn tired. <em>Harry</em>.</p><p>“Hey,” he croaked out, his voice strained and stretched from sleep, “I’m going to run and grab Madam Pomfrey, she was waiting for you to wake up.” His hand slipped from hers and her whole body turned cold. She hugged her hand to her chest, wincing at the pull in her shoulder. Not a minute later, Harry came scurrying into the room again, Madam Pomfrey on his heels.</p><p>Noticing the awake woman on the bed, the matron immediately set about fussing over her figure, having her stretch her arm out to test the motion in her shoulder, pulling her shirt up to rub some potion over the wound on her ribs. She didn’t remember what spell caused the wound; not like she remembered the cause of the shoulder injury.</p><p>The nurse fretted about, tittering on about the potions and salves she was required to drink and apply, respectively, every day. She supposed on a normal day she would have her quill and parchment out to scribble the instructions down dutifully, but she cannot find the energy to try. She was purely and completely exhausted. Her muscles ache and her bones sing for rest, while her skin stretched and pulled in a way that has her sure she was no longer in her own body. Nodding along so Pomfrey believed her when she said she’ll take care of herself, not that matron really did though, sending a stern look Harry’s way until he ensured her that he’d monitor it. Convinced, Madam Pomfrey sent her well wishes before leaving the room.</p><p>Alone with Harry, she relaxed. He knew how she feels, he knew what she’s thinking, he knew her.</p><p>“Do you want to see a mirror?”</p><p>She looked up from her quilt immediately, her hands stilling their ministrations against the blanket. She nodded mutely and his lips thinned in response, but he agreed nonetheless. He knew her reply before he even asked the question, they both knew it. She grabbed his outstretched hand and he supported her as they made their way to the bathroom.</p><p>“Do you want me to stay?”</p><p>She didn’t look at him when she shook her head, he squeezed her uninjured shoulder, <em>I’ll be right outside</em>, it said.</p><p>She stared at the floor until she heard the door click shut behind him. Slowly raising her head, she nearly gasped when her eyes met her reflection.</p><p>Pink, puckered lines jagged across her face, from her right eyebrow down to the left side of her jaw, down the left side of her neck until they stopped abruptly at her collarbone. Her right shoulder is wrapped delicately in bandages and she peeled them off until they landed in a wreck on the floor. A deep, vicious imprint of the werewolf’s bite greeted her, almost glittering in the cruel, redness that stamped her shoulder. Scars with werewolf venom could never be charmed, healed, or glamoured away. They were forever.</p><p>She met the reflection’s eyes and felt a sick form of relaxation flow through her body. They were still the same. Her brown irises were still brown, there was a sadness engraved in them that hadn’t been there before, the purple stain underneath deeper, but they were still <em>her. </em></p><p>A fire ebbed inside her as she began to braid her curls away from her face, her shoulder screaming in protest, but she didn’t care. She needed to feel like her. If she was going to live with these scars marring her features, she would be damned if she wasn’t going to tilt up her chin and face the new life awaiting her with nothing but stubborn, Gryffindor bravery. She was a werewolf now. She’d have questions for Lupin, but he would be expecting that. What would she be without her questions?</p><p>She was Hermione Granger, after all.</p><p> </p><p>
  <strong>11 Days After</strong>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>Ron hadn’t come to see her. She almost wished she was surprised. Harry had barely left her side, claiming it was not like they were going to send him to battle anyways. She knew it was because he felt guilty. Another life damaged by the war, <em>his</em>war. But she didn’t say anything. It wasn’t just his war anymore, it was never just his war, if they were being honest. She would’ve dropped anything for him in school to fight alongside her best friend, what was this? It was war, after all. People died, people were injured, lives were changed forever.</p><p>She had to beg Harry to let her talk to Lupin alone. She didn’t want him to hear the details about what miseries she would face every month under a lonely moon. Lupin’s gaze didn’t linger on her new scars and she felt slightly better.</p><p>The curious gazes, the pitying looks, the fascinated stares, any second glance she receives reminds her of the attack. She allowed herself to relax around Lupin. He understood. He had been doing this longer, he’d get her through it.</p><p>“We can go to the forest together. Tonks joins me, she shifts into a wolf to keep up with me and so I won’t attack her. Werewolves don’t go after other animals.”</p><p>She had to force the bile from rising in her throat. She knew this already, had carefully watched as the two dedicated one night every month to roaming the woods, forgoing sleep. She watched as they both would return, purple smudged under their eyelids. They couldn’t even sleep the following day, both dedicated to the war effort. Pouring coffee into mug after mug to force their eyes to stay open. Hunching over a notebook to detail plans, anything to help defeat the Death Eaters.</p><p>She resigned herself to the knowledge that her life would become a similar task of dreading the lunar cycle and reassuring herself that she wasn’t the monster she felt like. She could feel the way her shoulders began to sag under the information, the daunting weight of a new challenge.</p><p> </p><p>
  <strong>18 Days After</strong>
</p><p> </p><p>Another seven days. She’d seen every Weasley except Ron, including Percy.</p><p>Arthur gave her a tight-lipped smile on his way through. He had to go back to headquarters, he said. She was not sure if she believed him or not.</p><p>Molly gave her a tight hug, squeezing her even though her shoulder is still sore. She didn’t mind though. She hugged back, allowing herself the warmth of a mother, closing her eyes and imagining the red hair as brown and the arms belonging to her mother instead. Her mother wouldn’t even recognize her anymore, with or without the pink lines adorning her face.</p><p>Bill clapped her good shoulder and told her he knew a lot of delicious meat recipes, the scar on his face almost taunting her. She hated the jealousy that crawls under her skin. He didn’t share the same fate. She forced a laugh and hoped it convinced him.</p><p>Charlie just grinned at her, saying he liked the new look. <em>That</em>she truly laughed at because she barely knew the man standing across from her and he was joking with her and he didn’t glance at her scar twice, instead unbuttoning his shirt to show off the different marks across his chest, each from a different dragon. She decided that she liked him. The Weasley that worked with dragons and had light-hearted tales about near-death encounters.</p><p>Percy smiled at her, a slight upturn of the left side of his lips, but she decided it was enough.</p><p>Fred and George somehow managed the task of making her feel better and worse at the same time.</p><p>Fred asked her if she could take her shirt off and at her undignified glare, he laughed and said it was only to see her shoulder scar. Her hand smacked his arm and she wished she could laugh like he is. She managed a smile instead, ensuring him that she wasn’t mad.</p><p>George joked that he was glad she still has both of her ears, he really wanted to maintain his status as the only <em>holey</em>member of the Order. She didn’t know whether to laugh or to cry because she sure as hell felt as if pieces of her were cut out of her, leaving gaping holes behind, but it was <em>George</em>and he was staring and waiting for her to smile so she did, for both of their sakes.</p><p>Ginny went to sleep in Hermione’s bed that night, cuddling up next to her so they could share the same pillow. When her cries started as quiet whimpers and turned into body wracking sobs, Ginny only held her.</p><p>“It’s okay,” she whispered into her ear, her breath blowing some brown curls away from her cheek.</p><p>“It’s not,” she whispered back. Ginny’s red hair tickled her face as she curled around her, her arm slipping over the brunette’s waist.</p><p>“It will be.”</p><p>Hermione said nothing in response.</p><p>“I love you, Mia.”</p><p>“I love you, Gin.”</p><p>It was not okay, but it was enough, she told herself that night. It was enough, it was enough, it was enough, before she slipped into a restless sleep.</p><p> </p><p>
  <strong>27 Days After</strong>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>Rolling her shoulders to ease the strain, Hermione sent another nonverbal spell at the auror in front of her. She had to beg Tonks to train with her, but when she said that she had so much pent-up aggression and energy and anger, the metamorphmagus conceded. They’ve been at it for hours and the sweat rolled down Hermione’s forehead in fat tears.</p><p><em>“Carpe Retractum,” </em>She felt rather than heard Tonks’ spell, a red light wrapping around her before pulling her towards the purple-haired woman. “Focus, Hermione.”</p><p>But her focus was not on the practice duel, but on the fact that the full moon was just days away.</p><p> </p><p>
  <strong>29 Days After</strong>
</p><p> </p><p>“Alright, Hermione, you and I are going to brew some wolfsbane potion. We’ll take it in tea the entire day tomorrow and at a much higher dosage when it starts to get dark. Tonks, you, and I will head towards the woods as the sun sets and Tonks will transform while we wait for our transformation. She wanted to stay human to talk you through yours, but I told her it wasn’t safe. Do you want me to talk you through how your transformation will go? I know you’ve seen mine years ago.”</p><p>Lupin’s voice was gentle and soothing, and she wished it could calm the storm raging in her stomach. She was surprised its contents hadn’t come back up yet. She gulped. “Can you tell me?” Her voice was quieter than she’d like, but she did nothing to rectify this.</p><p>“Of course.” And he did. He told her about her bones breaking and healing and changing to fit her new form. He told her about the odd, itchy feeling that’d spread across her skin as fur sprouted from it like weeds. He told her about the way her teeth would grow and change to make way for sharp canines that could rip out throats. She felt guilty when she almost wished that dark werewolf almost a month ago had just ripped hers out instead of leaving her to this fate. She shook her head free of those thoughts, she was <em>alive,</em>and it was<em>enough</em>, even when it was too much.</p><p> </p><p>
  <strong>30 Days After</strong>
</p><p> </p><p>She drank the wolfsbane in her tea all day like Lupin instructed. She had to force it down her throat and stopped the gags that beg her to throw it up. It <em>burned</em>as it made its way into her. And it was a minimal dosage. She cringed thinking about the higher dosage she’d drink later on. She regreted her decision to ask Lupin to detail her transformation, the picture of her body snapping and twitching and breaking hadn’t left her mind since.</p><p>She jumped and hit her elbow against the counter when Neville walked into the kitchen while she was pouring more wolfsbane into her new cup of tea, if she had to be awake all night, she was drinking all the caffeine she could get.</p><p>“Hey, Mione. How are you doing?” He coughed into his shoulder, realizing his mistake, but too late. He sent an apologetic smile her way. “If you need anything, just let me know.”</p><p>She forced her lips to curl upwards, he meant well, even if there was <em>nothing</em>he could do. She left the kitchen before he had the chance to say anything more.</p><p> </p><p>-------</p><p> </p><p>Meeting Lupin on the front porch to chug their undiluted wolfsbane together was the only thing that could convince Hermione to drink the god forsaken thing. It burned and crawled down her throat, sending shockwaves of fire into her arteries. She didn’t know how he’d done this for so long, she was already tired of it. She supposed she would get used to it. She’d have to.</p><p>Her former professor told her that the potion would not stop the transformation, or even make it easier. It simply made her less aggressive, less inclined to attack any human she saw or <em>smelled</em>.</p><p>She was on edge; she knew it as much as he did. He sent worried glances her way as the two of them head towards the forest. He said Tonks was already there, she wanted to give her some time to talk to Lupin alone. She had more questions, but every time she opened her mouth to let them tumble out, her throat clenched and scratched against itself and her tongue retreated. He reached over and squeezed her shoulder in that reassuring way that her father used to. She sent him a grateful smile, but he could see the nerves still jumping off of her.</p><p>The transformation happened earlier than she was expecting, the sun just barely under the horizon before the shine from the moon illuminated her. She felt a cry in the back of her throat but muffled it before it appeared. It started in her bitten shoulder, she noted. The cracking and burning of each bone sent her sprawling on the ground before the bones healed into their new shape.</p><p>Lupin wasn’t joking when he said it felt like weeds sprouting from her skin. She wanted to puke. She could smell everything. The squirrels in the tree above her and the bunny in the bush a couple feet from her. She hated it more than she’d admit. Especially with the realization that Lupin informed her that a slightly stronger sense of smell will stick with her after the first transformation.</p><p>She wished she wasn’t revolted by the idea of wolf traits sticking with her when she was human again. But she was.</p><p> </p><p>
  <strong>36 Days After</strong>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>The full moon came and went, and Hermione could still feel the exhaustion in her bones. But right now, she had other things to do. Tonks told her that the two of them had an assignment from the Order. Something about a defected Death Eater. Tonks didn’t give her a name, she’s not sure if it is because she didn’t know it herself.</p><p>He had apparently passed the interrogation process, both the Veritasium and the legilimency steps. Somehow this still didn’t ease the tension in her shoulders. Defected or not, the scars on her face glittered like a target to Death Eaters.</p><p>Who she was expecting to see behind the cell bars, she was not sure, but it sure as hell was not <em>him</em>. Not that same silvery blond hair, sharp features that he’d grown into so much that they weren’t pointy like they had been when they were kids. No, he looked like was sculpted from marble and she hated herself for noticing. It had only been a couple months since she saw him last, but he had changed as if years had passed.</p><p>But the smug air he normally walked with, the pride etched into his broad shoulders, the arrogancy holding his spine straight, it was gone. The staunch and tight lines of surely charmed expensive oxford shirts gone, the clean and precise way his hair hung around his skull gone.</p><p>Instead, his head was hung, his neck loose as he stared at his twiddling thumbs, his hair hanging around his face, brushing against his sweaty forehead. His expensive clothes were replaced with the cheap cotton uniforms they used to provide to Azkaban prisoners, as if defecting was nothing in comparison to where they came from. A reminder that they could still be imprisoned and that accepting them into the Order was a gift, something to be grateful for.</p><p>When he looked up and a sneer etched onto his features, she half expected a quick <em>mudblood</em>to be fired at her, but he wouldn’t meet her eyes. She scoffed, as if he had any purchase to act like he was above her when <em>he</em>was the one in the cage. His head jerked towards her at the noise and she had to clench her fists at the intensity in his gaze. Grey eyes filled with cold calculation, cold enough to freeze her even feet away from him.</p><p>His eyes flicked over her scars as if they weren’t there, but they were, and she knew he saw them. He met her eyes and she had to force herself to look away before it burnt her.</p><p> </p><p>
  <strong>37 Days After</strong>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>She couldn’t stop thinking about the look in Malfoy’s eyes. Despite, the sneer etched onto his face, she saw the way his eyes tightened in concern before they iced over with a determined coldness. He didn’t look at her with disgust, surprisingly.</p><p>She wasn’t expecting him to be the defector, but now that she’d seen him, she couldn’t get him out of her head. From wondering about why he was there, why he decided now was the time to leave the Death Eater regime behind him to thinking about how he had grown into his sharp features to thinking about if he was hurt.</p><p>Surely, no one in the Order and no Aurors liked him, in fact most of them held a special, burning hate in their hearts for anyone harboring the Malfoy name. He had to be interrogated and she knew that the process included legilimency and Veritasium, but was that all it included? Especially for their enemies. Which, Malfoy didn’t really qualify for anymore if he was on their side now. But they had to be sure he wasn’t a spy, and a beating could be deemed necessary.</p><p>He hadn’t had any visible bruising or cuts, but the only skin she could see was his neck and face. They had certainly treated him like he was a prisoner, she wouldn’t be surprised if they had broken ribs as they told him about the gift the Order was giving him by accepting him with <em>open</em>arms.</p><p>Shaking her head, she pushed him out of her head. She didn’t care if they beat him to a bloody pulp, he had sat there and watched while she was tortured and branded by his own family, within the walls of his manor, on the floor of his drawing room. She wouldn’t be surprised if he watched the elves clean her dirty blood away. She didn’t care if they hurt him. She didn’t care that he would be joining the Order. She didn’t care.</p><p> </p><p>
  <strong>43 Days After</strong>
</p><p> </p><p>Ron saw her today. He took one look at her and started crying.</p><p> </p><p>
  <strong>44 Days After</strong>
</p><p> </p><p>“Hermione, I’ve been at this a long time. I just wanted you to know that you can always come to me to talk. I know it may be awkward for you, considering the way I was introduced into your life, as your professor, but I know you learned of my lycanthropy early on and it never seemed to change how you thought about me. It shouldn’t change how you think about yourself.”</p><p>“How?”</p><p>“You are still the same person you always have been. You’re not a monster and you never will be.”</p><p>She managed a nod and looked away from Lupin before he could see the way her eyes had glazed over or notice the way she was biting down on her lip to prevent the ache from escaping. He grasped her shoulder before leaving her room and she was left alone to cry, but they didn’t fall from her tear line; instead drying up as she forced a glare at the wall. Basking in the rolling anger that had spread within her chest to force the sadness away.</p><p>Harry had tried to comfort her after watching Ron walk away from her, sobs wracking his body as he left her standing alone, her eyes widened and hand covering half of her face. He tried to stop her as she pulled and scratched at her own skin, trying to pull the markings off of her.</p><p>He held her as she cried, her arms firmly within his own so she couldn’t do further damage to herself. He rocked her after they had fallen to the floor when her knees gave out on her. He brushed her hair away from her face when it got caught in the wet trails on her cheeks.</p><p>“He didn’t mean it; he’ll get over it. He just needs time.” Harry said once she’d stopped crying, when her grip on him eased slightly and her head lifted from being buried against his jumper, staining it with salt.</p><p>“Get over it?” It was barely understandable, her voice raspy and thick. “I didn’t realize this was something he would need to get over.”</p><p>It was all she said before she walked outside and began hexing tree after tree behind whatever safehouse they were at this time. She watched with sick satisfaction as they burned and exploded before her eyes. She knew Harry was leaning next to the doorframe, watching her with concern in his eyes, his eyebrows pinched as her emotions roll off her in waves, practically visible in the way she waved her wand.</p><p>She vaguely heard him call to her, informing her that he was going to make her dinner, to join him when she was done. She didn’t respond.</p><p>She didn’t notice when another tall figure took Harry’s place watching her until it was well past sunset and she stomped back towards the house, noticing the way his hair flickered silver in the moonlight. She glared at him as she passed.</p><p> </p><p>
  <strong>46 Days After</strong>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>“Hey, Mione, do you want to play chess with me?”</p><p>“I’m quite rubbish at it, but why the hell not?”</p><p>So, she played chess with Neville for hours while they exchange stories, light-hearted tales about their school years. Both of them trying to avoid thinking about the war that raged on while they stayed in the house and pretended that they were simply just old school friends.</p><p> </p><p>
  <strong>47 Days After</strong>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>“Hey, Mia, Ron is leaving today.”</p><p>It was Ginny, the only redhead Hermione had allowed to enter her room ever since Ron arrived at the safehouse. It was petty, she knew that just as much as the next person, but the male Weasleys held too much resemblance to their youngest brother and she couldn't bear looking at them.</p><p>She didn’t need him <em>looking </em>at him like that again. His look, his eyes unrecognizing as he stared at her scars, but not her. Not at the girl who buried her head in books or the girl who cried because he didn’t ask her to Yule Ball or at the girl who loved him, both in spite of and because of all his faults.</p><p>The boy who couldn’t look past her faults, who couldn’t love her in spite or because of them.</p><p>She mumbled an okay before rolling over in her bed, her back facing the doorway where the ginger girl still stood.</p><p>“Alright, enough of this, what do you want to do? And don’t say stay here, because I am not allowing you to mope for a second longer. Hmm, what about throwing hexes at a target charmed to have red hair? Or maybe something more physical? Throw punches at someone? I’m sure I could get Fred or George to let you box them. Or maybe someone you hate? Malfoy? I could body bind him and then you just let loose some punches?”</p><p>Hermione tried to stifle the laugh that choked her when it lodged in her throat. Ginny saw straight through the coughs that now wrack her body, but placed her hand on her shoulder, nonetheless.</p><p>“C’mon, which option did you like the best? I’ll let you choose, but just know my favorite is definitely hitting Malfoy. Former death eatery aside, he’s still a right prat.”</p><p>She didn’t take her up on any option, but instead they made tea and sat outside under a bright blue sky until it faded to night.</p><p> </p><p>
  <strong>53 Days After</strong>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>It was a week from the next full moon and Hermione could feel that fact grating down on her bones as she struggled to get out of her bed. She only forced herself up when she heard a loud crash, followed by yells. She threw a jumper on, forgoing pants in her haste, and rushed out to see what the commotion was about.</p><p>“What the hell are you doing here, Malfoy?”</p><p>It was a snarl, spat into his face with by none other than Dean Thomas as he shoved him against the wall. Malfoy pushed him off him and <em>literally</em>spat at Dean’s feet. Dean yelled and his fist collided with Malfoy’s jaw. Malfoy lunged at the Gryffindor, sending them sprawling onto the ground.</p><p>“I’m here fighting <em>with</em>you lot and apparently none of you gits can get that through your thick heads.”</p><p>His aristocratic drawl was slurred, likely from pain in his jaw, as he sent a punch straight into Dean’s nose. He didn’t get much further before the rest of the Gryffindors in the room pulled him off and hoisted them away from each other.</p><p>Malfoy’s eyes met hers over the chaos and his lips curved up into a vicious smirk and his eyes flickered down to her bare legs. She turned around and locked the bedroom door behind her.</p><p> </p><p>
  <strong>54 Days After</strong>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>She knew he was staying in the same safe house as her. The Order had some balls throwing him into house with a bunch of angry and war-torn teenagers. They all should still be in their seventh year at Hogwarts, but instead they were pretend soldiers in a war that threatened to kill them. It had killed many of them.</p><p>She, herself, wanted to send a nice middle finger in the direction of the Order, throwing the man that had singlehandedly brought Death Eaters into their school, <em>her</em>safe haven, helping kill their headmaster who she looked up to. Harry’s told her how his voice shook and his hand trembled and he cried and still failed to do it. But she didn’t <em>care</em>. It didn’t take back his role in Dumbledore’s death and she wasn’t sure she’d ever be able to look at the pale <em>man</em>and not see her headmaster’s dead body.</p><p>She, however, did not expect to see the blond in the kitchen when she trudged in. She just wanted coffee but instead she was given a headache in the form of a tall former Death Eater. He didn’t notice her when she walked in, instead her slamming the cupboard forced him to acknowledge her existence, turning around to glare at her.</p><p>“Trying to wake the whole house, are we?” His bored drawl just made her angry and she had to fist her hands in her jumper to stop herself from pulling a Dean and sending them at his smug face.</p><p>“Piss off.”</p><p>He stared at her; his eyes calculatingly blank while he catalogued her scarred face. She braced herself for the comment, if anyone was to make an ill comment about the way her face looked now, it would be him. He didn’t though.</p><p>“You should really do something about that rat’s nest atop your head.”</p><p>She didn’t respond, just stomped away from the kitchen with her full mug of coffee.</p><p> </p><p>
  <strong>61 Days After</strong>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>The next full moon came and went, and Hermione found herself out in the middle of a new battlefield. Lupin had protested: “You can’t send her out to fight the day after a full moon.”</p><p>He was met with: “We don’t have enough people. She’s going, you fight after a full moon, she can too.”</p><p>So here she was, firing hexes at ivory masks and black robes, hoping she was hitting the enemy and not somehow misfiring on her own people. It was not like she could fully <em>see</em>what she was firing at, the smoke and dust layering in the air creates a nice haze she had to squint to see through.</p><p>Her body heaved as she ran through the chaos, stepping in blood and almost tripping over the dead body of someone from her side. She hated that she didn’t know who it was, she knew they were an Order member from the Phoenix around his arm, but his features were puffy and distorted, likely from some hex a Death Eater had sent his way. She forced herself to keep running, there’ll be time to count the dead later. Maybe.</p><p>A spell shot past her, singing her hair in her narrow dodging. She panted, continuing running. Her bones groaned and grinded against each other as she ran, still healing from their readjustment to the human conformation. She fired a <em>Stupefy</em>at the mask that just fired against her, watching as his body slams against the wall behind him.</p><p>She yelled as a spell catches her shoulder and sent her into the ground, trembling as the <em>Crucio</em>tears through her. It stopped abruptly and she had to fight the trembles within her hands. The Death Eater lay feet from her prone figure, dead. She looked around to see a pale blond looking at her, his wand still lifted towards where her attacker was.</p><p>She didn’t smile in thanks and neither did he, she stood with shaky legs and continues fighting.</p><p> </p><p>
  <strong>74 Days After</strong>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>Malfoy hadn’t stayed in the same safe house as her since. She sat at the counter while she drank her coffee and watched as Lavender practically twirled into the kitchen. Hermione knew she had just shagged some bloke, probably an older Auror and that was why she was so happy.</p><p>She wanted to understand how sex with a stranger made her so happy. She was not sure if she was jealous or disgusted by the idea that she’d never experience sex with a stranger. What kind of stranger would be attracted to the girl with the deep scars etched into her face? No one wanted a werewolf.</p><p>“Hermione, can you pass me the sugar?” She did so without looking up, she didn’t want to see the relaxed look on Lavender’s face as she dwelled in her afterglow from a night with a man. She was not sure she’d <em>ever </em>have that if she was honest. She had thought, maybe with Ron, but with the way he looked at her, she was sure he’d never love her again. If he ever really did.</p><p> </p><p>
  <strong>85 Days After</strong>
</p><p> </p><p>Hermione didn’t sleep that night. She was left tossing and turning under the too heavy, but too light covers. She twisted to try and find comfort under the blankets but was left unsatisfied and restless. So, she got up and figures she could apply herself to some research.</p><p>She was told that morning that Harry and Ron were on the hunt for the last of the Horcruxes. Hermione knew she wasn’t with them because of <em>what</em>she was now. She would endanger them on a monthly basis. She didn’t think about that anymore though, she had spent enough time thinking about it under the harsh sun of the day, she didn’t need to spend more under the gentle touch of the moon.</p><p>The kitchen was unoccupied, so she made herself a cup of tea. Not that she needed the caffeine at this time of night, but the safe house’s drawers lacked anything that might be decaf. She didn’t mind, though. She sent a quick thankful praise upwards when she realized it was a nice night outside. She settled herself onto the porch’s stairs and cupped her tea within her hands.</p><p>It was a quiet night and she reveled in it. She didn’t get much peaceful quiet anymore. The quiet didn’t last long though before footsteps sounded behind her. Someone settled down next to her, warmth radiating off their body. She didn’t look up; she knew who it is. He was the only other one who got up when he couldn’t sleep, she’d seen him plenty of times. They never sat together though; this was new.</p><p>She held her breath in anticipation, waiting for him to hurl an insult her way. But he didn’t. He just sat next to her, a mug of tea within his own hands. She laughed at the similarities between them. He stared at her, an empty blankness in his grey eyes.</p><p>“You’ve truly gone mad.” He muttered before looking forward at the trees beyond the safe house. She didn’t answer, just continued to laugh before staring at the trees herself.</p><p>They sat together until the sun began to paint the sky in pale shades of blue and pink. He stood before she did and left her there to marvel at the dawn.</p><p> </p><p>
  <strong>98 Days After</strong>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>She started to see him more. He seemed to be in every safe house she entered. Everyone else ignored him, laughter quieting when he walked in, stares sent his way. They almost seemed like two peas in a pod considering that was how everyone treated her now. Like they were walking on eggshells, waiting for her to crack.</p><p>They didn’t act like that around Lupin. She had brought it up with him and he told her it was new for everyone. She didn’t respond, it was new for her too. He told her to give it time before he left her alone with her thoughts.</p><p>She glared at Malfoy the next time she saw him. It was not fair, she knew it, but she was just so <em>mad</em>at him. Mad that she was getting the same treatment as him. As if she was a former Death Eater, as if she fixed up that vanishing cabinet, as if she was given the assignment to kill Dumbledore.</p><p>She exploded on him while her former classmates watched. She took the treatment she was receiving out on him and he let her, taking shots right back.</p><p>She was currently pointing her wand at his throat and had him backed up against a wall in the hallway. “Why are you even here, Malfoy?”</p><p>He seethed at her, baring his teeth in an almost snarl as he hurled his next words. “Granger, if you don’t back off of me, you will regret it.”</p><p>She didn't move.</p><p>“Please, do it! Fight me! Are you going to send the killing curse at me? Make up for the fact that you weren’t the one to do it to Dumbledore? Be the big, bad scary Death Eater! You have the mark! Why don’t you show us it, Malfoy?”</p><p>She pushed her wand further into his neck until she was sure it’d bruise him. His wand was in her pocket, she took it with a quick <em>expelliarmus</em>before he even realized she was pressing him into the wall.</p><p>His face was red and she could see a vein protruding from his neck in his effort to contain his anger. He growled and spun them around, her back hitting the wall with a sharp thud, her wand still threatening his neck.</p><p>“Why don’t you show us <em>your</em>mark? You’re the big, bad, scary werewolf, not me. Maybe your friends wouldn’t be treating you like you were a pathetic half-breed if you stopped acting like one.”</p><p>His face was so close to hers she could feel his breath on her face. It was hot and angry, and she acted before she could pay a second thought to her actions, swinging her head forward to collide it with his. In his shock, she twisted them around again and threw her hands forward, hoping they’d hit their mark somewhere. He was quick though, grabbing her hands and pulling them away from his person. She struggled and pushed them against him until she was clawing at him and he rotated her wrists so she couldn’t hit her mark anymore.</p><p>She felt herself falling to the ground and landed on her side, her hands still locked in Malfoy’s grasp. She tried to wrangle them out and went to kick him, only to see him stunned. Hands wrapped around her stomach and pulled her away from the <em>stupefied</em>blond.</p><p>She twisted to attempt to get out of whoever’s hold she was in and found herself face to face with Fred. His eyebrows were drawn together, and his eyes were pinched in concern. Concern for her.</p><p>“Do you want to take a shower, or do you want to go to bed?” She didn’t answer, her body sagging against his frame.</p><p>He brought her to her bed and as his hand reached the doorknob to leave, she called out for him, a small voice straining her throat. He turned around and returned to her side.</p><p>“Can you stay with me?”</p><p>She could barely meet his eyes as he nodded and sat next to her on the bed. She curled into him and pushed down the guilt she felt for wrapping herself around this redhead. But he was <em>here,</em>and he was a <em>man,</em>and he didn’t look at her like she was tainted or dangerous and just wrapped his arms around her as she cried. Neither of them would mention this moment, but she knew he needed the comfort just as much as she did.</p><p> </p><p>
  <strong>111 Days After</strong>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>She was panting and running and sending hex after hex behind her as she narrowly dodged the curse sent her way. They had sent them here with the small team, even after Hermione had begged them for more people. <em>There are no more people</em>.</p><p>She wished she could’ve argued with them, but she knew they were right. Moody glaring down at her as she argued and argued until that shut her up.</p><p>She sent another<em>stupefy</em>at the tall Death Eater and watches as he fell ungracefully. She hated herself for the sick grin that broke out on her face. She wiped it off her face and started running towards the meeting place, only to have to stop halfway there and gag until bile left her mouth. She wiped her mouth with her tattered, smoke-filled jumper. She continued running and narrowly missed a fallen body. She wasn’t sure if it was one of hers or not.</p><p>The plan, obviously, had failed. They had 8 people and had split up in pairs to close in on the Death Eaters, but there were so many of them and she had gotten separated from her partner somewhere along the line. She flung a hex at a body in the distance and watched as the woman fell in a clump and realized with a twist in her stomach that it was one of her own, the Phoenix engraved on her sleeve glimmering in the sun.</p><p>“Fuck.” She was rennervating the woman and watched as Padma looked up at her. “I’m sorry, I didn’t see your mark.” Padma only nodded in response before Hermione helped her up and they both took off at a run.</p><p>They managed to make it out of the anti-apparition wards before whisking themselves away from the fighting, calling for a retreat through their coins. Their wards bit them in the ass more often than they helped them. She knew they were put in place so no Death Eaters could retreat from the battle, but it prevented them from escaping easily too.</p><p>They had lost 3 people. Three out of the eight that were sent into battle and Hermione had to stop herself from throwing punches at Moody when he stood in front of her and asked her how the mission went.</p><p>Susan Bones, Michael Corner, and a Hufflepuff from a couple years above her that she couldn’t remember the name of.</p><p>A twisting of self-loathing entered her stomach, and she knew her face had that same look of disgust on it. Moody recognized it as he sends her away, calling for a debriefing first thing in the morning <em>when she could get over herself</em>. He didn’t say the last part, but she heard it.</p><p> </p><p>
  <strong>122 Days After</strong>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>She’d lost count of the full moons she has endured so far; a significantly few amount compared to Lupin but her body is already exhausted. But this morning she woke with scratches littering her body and knew last night’s full moon was worse than the previous ones. Lupin appeared in her doorway and told her when she was ready, he could heal them with some <em>episkeys</em>and that someone had made breakfast and she could have some, “I’ll wait in the kitchen.”</p><p>She threw herself in the shower so she could meet Lupin. She was not sure she’d eat, though. She hadn’t been eating enough. She didn’t think anyone had noticed, but she didn’t miss the pointed look Lupin sent her way. She wasn’t sure she could eat; it was all likely to come back up within the hour anyways.</p><p>She wasn’t expecting to see Malfoy in the kitchen when she finally made her appearance. Lupin beckoned her over and he performed quick healing spells on all the cuts and bruises she had over her and then he took his leave, claiming Moody was expecting him.</p><p>“Rough night?” His voice had amusement spun through it like cotton candy and she glared at him.</p><p>She didn’t answer. She’d been doing a lot of that lately, not answering. It was harder than screaming what she wanted to think, but she was just so tired of yelling and talking and whispering and maintaining the social politeness just so her friends didn’t stare at her like she was a cruel monster who’d tear them to pieces if they looked at her the wrong way. She wouldn’t, but they apparently didn’t seem to know that.</p><p>Malfoy was the only one who wasn’t polite with her one second and ignoring her the next and she hated that she was almost grateful. He was the only one she’d attacked and yet he was also the only one who acted like she was not going to snap. Perhaps it was because he actually had seen her crack and break and scream.</p><p>Before he left, he addressed her. “Eat something, I made enough. You’re starting to look like a skeleton on top of a scratched up raggedy doll.”</p><p>She had to stop herself from throwing her mug at his retreating figure.</p><p> </p><p>
  <strong>136 Days After</strong>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>“Pray tell, why the bloody hell are half-breeds in this meeting?” It was a spit sent her way from some Auror she didn’t know. She hoped her flinch was well hidden.</p><p>Lupin was sitting next to her and grabbed her hand as he responded in his usual diplomatic Professor tone. The one that made you feel as though he was educating you on something without being condescending. He droned on about how they were supposed to be the ones fighting against the racist, bigotry, but the man only got angrier. <em>How dare a werewolf speak down to him?</em></p><p>Moody sent him to wait out in the hall, cursing the Ministry for its thinly veiled bigotry yet claims that they were the good guys. He didn’t apologize to her or Lupin. She wasn’t expecting one anyways.</p><p>She realized that this was the response that everyone gave Malfoy when he sat in on their meetings. She hated that people addressed her the same as they did him. She understood their distrust of him, he had done a lot of bad things, sure she understood it. But she was attacked. She hadn’t even hurt anyone during any of her transformations, even when some drunk Auror wandered into the woods on a full moon night.</p><p>She was left full of resentment. Resentment for herself, but mostly for the werewolf that had left her alive instead of killing her when he had the chance.</p><p> </p><p>
  <strong>143 Days After</strong>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>It was Malfoy’s birthday today. She had seen it on the charmed calendar someone kept on the fridge so everyone could get their birthday wishes.</p><p>No one wished him a Happy Birthday.</p><p> </p><p>
  <strong>150 Days After</strong>
</p><p> </p><p>She received a letter from Harry that day. It was short and his handwriting was a scribbled mess. He was in an obvious rush, but that was almost better because he was still thinking about her.</p><p>She was not sure how old the letter was. She’d sent several to him in the past, but each time she was told they wouldn’t make it to him until the next time they checked in with the base. It was too dangerous to try to deliver them unless he came to them, couldn’t give away his location. She understood, she had helped Moody come up with the communication process with Harry and the horcrux team. It was still explained to her every time she brought a letter.</p><p>It was not a long one, it simply gave a vague description of the progress and told her he missed her. There was a line at the bottom that looked like he wrote it as an afterthought. <em>Give Ron some leeway, he misses you too.</em></p><p>Some leeway. She was tired of being told to excuse people of their reactions towards her new life, her new predicament, her scars. She was the one who had to deal with it. Each time someone reacted, she felt another brick added to her shoulders and she was not sure she’d be able to keep standing much longer.</p><p>He was supposed to love her, even if not romantically, was she not still one of his best friends? She knew Harry felt guilty when he looks at her, could feel it in the air like a thick smog when he sat next to her bed and when she avoided mirrors for the first weeks. Then he had to leave, but he never avoided her, he still told her he loved her and made sure she knew this. Ron didn’t act like this with Lupin, so why was he with her? She was the same Hermione, she just had physical scars to match her inner ones now.</p><p>She wrote a reply to Harry and only Harry, no afterthoughts addressing their redhead best friend.</p><p> </p><p>
  <strong>155 Days After</strong>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>She didn’t know why she did it, but she went for a swim in the lake behind the new safe house. She probably shouldn’t, it was late and dark, and no one knows where she was, but she did.</p><p>She spent hours and hours floating and staring at the stars in the sky and reacquainting herself with her skin as she ran her hands over the raised lines on her neck and the mark on her shoulder that had been put through healing spell after healing spell yet still looked gruesome. It was healed, it was definitely a scar instead of a wound, but she despised the way the skin puckered and twisted in on itself.</p><p>“It’s not particularly safe to be outside in a lake by yourself, is it?” A voice drawled above her, and she jolted at the voice, sputtering water out of her mouth as she flailed. Looking up, she saw the way the moon glittered upon his icy hair and almost gaped. He was standing before her and the moon was behind him and he was just so tall against the backdrop.</p><p>“It sure doesn’t look like I care, does it?”</p><p>“No, it doesn’t.”</p><p>He didn’t sit, he was still just standing and staring at her and she blushed when she realized she was just in her underwear and a bra. Her skin was on display and it was not <em>pretty. </em>She wished her skin was flat and shiny like a porcelain doll, but it was olive, and she had more scars than she could count at this point.</p><p>The hex wound from the night of her attack scarred like a burn along her ribs and she had a jagged line running straight down her sternum like she underwent heart surgery from the curse Dolohov sent at her that night in the Department of Mysteries and the 8 letters spelling out how dirty her blood was were raised and red along her arm. Not to mention the obvious ones that now showed just how much <em>dirtier</em>her blood was now that she was a half-breed.</p><p>He spotted the anger spitting out of her like fumes out her ears and sighed. She watched as he slipped his shoes and socks off before rolling his pant legs up. She almost laughed at how innocent he looked sitting with his feet in the lake – almost. If they were two different people, she probably would’ve. But they weren’t.</p><p>“People are treating you differently.”</p><p>It was not a question; it was a statement. She didn’t look up from the water, just nodded her head and she heard him puff out a breath.</p><p>“They shouldn’t be.”</p><p><em>That </em>snapped her head up to look at him. He just stared blankly at her.</p><p>“You’re still the same insufferable swot you have been for years.”</p><p>She didn’t even know what to say to that and she was still thinking for a response when he got up and began to trek back to the house.</p><p> </p><p>
  <strong>163 Days After</strong>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>She hadn’t seen Malfoy since that night in the lake and she wished she wasn’t waiting for him to waltz into the room she was in. He had a way of appearing every time she was not looking for him. But he wouldn’t be walking in today.</p><p>She was at the Burrow, laughing with Ginny and the twins as they talked about the pranks, they had been playing on the Order members in every safe house they stayed in.</p><p>The Weasleys – minus Ron – treated her exactly the same as they always had, and she soaked up every minute she could spend with them.</p><p>When she went to bed that night, she laid next to Ginny and they stayed up far later than they should’ve talking about anything and everything that came to their minds. Lighthearted chats and conversations about how the war was hurting them.</p><p>Ginny hadn’t seen Harry since Hermione got attacked and she was getting restless. She confessed that he hadn’t even written to her and the brunette felt guilt crawl inside her lungs when she realized he’d written to <em>her</em>and not his girlfriend. Ginny claimed that she didn’t even know if they were still dating, she didn’t know what she could call Harry.</p><p>“I know that I love him. He says he loves me, but he still treats me as though anything he tells me will break me. I’m not a doll, I’m not fragile and I thought I made that <em>clear</em>to him, but he hasn’t changed how he acts around me.”</p><p>But there was no place for relationships in war and she didn’t know how to reassure Ginny, so she just held her hand as she ranted and cried and even when she fell asleep. “It’ll be okay,” was muttered as she dozes off and she was unsure if her or Ginny said it. But it was enough.</p><p> </p><p>
  <strong>165 Days After</strong>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>Hermione could officially brew wolfsbane by herself. Lupin patted her on the back and congratulated her before he helped her pour it into vials for them to drink the following full moon. She had a calendar dictating the lunar phases hung above her makeshift workstation. She cried. She frantically wiped her tears away, so they didn’t spill into the potion.</p><p> </p><p>
  <strong>174 Days After</strong>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>“Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.” Malfoy shouted, propping Dean against his shoulder, a deep gash slicing through his thigh. “Granger! We need to go! We need to GO!” He yelled across the battlefield and she shot him some sort of hand signal, so he knew she heard him as she threw hex after hex at the Death Eaters approaching, the three of them making their retreat.</p><p>She ran towards him as the masked enemies continued their approach, firing hexes blindly behind her. One hit the side of her head right as she reached Malfoy. The two of them grabbed onto one of their emergency portkeys. She was not sure if it was Malfoy’s or Dean’s, not that it entirely mattered, but that was the thought that captured her mind as they landed on the floor in headquarters.</p><p>Luckily people were in the room, so they were on him immediately, rushing about and yelling for bandages and <em>do this </em>and <em>do that</em>. She could feel the weight of the mission weighing down on her shoulders and she had to prop an arm against the wall to prevent collapsing onto the now bloody floor.</p><p>She was staring at a crack in the floor, but she wasn’t really seeing anything. People were rushing around and shoving past her when she got in the way. There was a buzzing in her ears, and she would’ve assumed there might’ve been a fly if it weren’t for the foggy movements of the healers around her. She could feel warm fingers wrapping around her forearm yanking her out of the room.</p><p>Malfoy’s face appeared before hers and it was clear that he was yelling. His face was red, and his eyes were crinkled into that sneer he knew how to do so well, and his lips were pressed with hard lines. Grey turned to steel, a violent storm raging behind his eyes. She was not sure what he was saying, but she was grateful for the reprieve of his anger. Even though it probably meant there was something wrong with her hearing. Maybe, or she was just in shock. She was not sure.</p><p>He was done yelling, she realized. He was staring at her blankly, anger still evident in the crease present between his eyebrows. He slowly raised one of said eyebrows at her continued silence. He was critiquing her, criticizing her for her response to the mission.</p><p>She should’ve killed someone today. But she didn’t. She couldn’t get the two dark words to pass her lips and Dean might lose his leg because of it. She knew the curse that caused the wound in his leg was dark magic, she knew it spread and simmered until it destroyed everything in its path, sometimes unresponsive to healing spells.</p><p>She couldn’t utter a response to Malfoy, even though she knew he was waiting for one. An explanation, or perhaps an apology, for screwing up the mission. She knew he fired killing curses at the Death Eaters, and she couldn’t fathom how it hadn’t darkened his already contaminated soul.</p><p>She saw the damage in her friends, the way their shoulders slumped, and their eyes stared off blankly at meals. The way they desperately sought a release for all of their twisted and convoluted emotions. Some of them dueled and train and practiced until they were sweaty and sore and tired, but still didn’t sleep. Some of them had endless meaningless sex, no strings attached kinds of arrangements just to get <em>some</em>kind of release.</p><p>No one talked about the irreversible stain <em>Avada Kedavra </em>did on one’s soul. Hermione felt a sort of guilt for not sharing that burden with them. She felt even more guilt for the judgement that rattled her when she saw them kill their enemy.</p><p>Not to mention that you had to <em>mean</em>the spell when you casted it. Hermione feared she’d go to fire it in battle and nothing would happen. She’d be dead in seconds.</p><p>He was snapping his fingers in front of her face, an exasperated look replacing the anger. She still couldn’t hear him and when he walked closer to her, she couldn’t help the steps she took backwards. He didn’t acknowledge it and continued approaching her. His wand was in her face and before she could respond with her own wand, she felt a sharp pressure in her ears and suddenly she could hear the clammer from the kitchen and could hear her own breathing, it was still coming out in heavy pants of fear. Her heart was beating fast enough that she was sure Malfoy could hear it. He didn’t react if he could.</p><p>“Can you hear me now?” His voice vibrated through her chest and a shudder trailed down her spine. She only nodded in response.</p><p>“Good, I’d yell at you, but I don’t really fancy repeating everything. Just tell me, are you so stupid that you think firing a flimsy <em>Stupefy</em>at a Death Eater is going to stop him? Please tell me you are not that thick, I thought you were the <em>Brightest Witch of our Age</em>, Granger. They dally in dark magic like it is their second nature and you’re out here firing spells that we learned before we even knew the Dark Lord was back. Do you really think that your elementary spells are going to stop them?”</p><p>His breath was angry as it fluttered over her face, he was maybe inches away from her and she had to stop herself from recoiling. Nobody had been this close to her since the attack. Her breath sent his pale hair traveling across his forehead and that seemed to register in his brain before he took one, two steps back. Anger brewed at the bottom of her stomach and she nearly grimaced at the acid rolling within her.</p><p>“Oh, I’m so sorry I can’t be heartless and apathetic like you, Malfoy. How am I supposed to send <em>killing</em>curses at someone? Is it <em>easy</em>for you to be a killer? Is this some sick, perverted mission to bring everyone down to your level so no one can judge you for killing? How are we any better than them if we’re killing them too?”</p><p>She was yelling, her throat was getting hoarse, her chest heaved up and down as she sucked in air.</p><p>“It’s war, Granger!” He reached up and yanked at his hair and she realized that she aggravated him just as much as he aggravated her. Good. “It’s war! Being better than the other side doesn’t matter as much as surviving!”</p><p>“Why are we even fighting this bloody war if being better than them doesn’t matter?”</p><p>“Because it doesn’t! Our beliefs are what we’re fighting for, the future, and if we’re dead, we won’t be in that future! Morality won’t win the war.”</p><p>“Oh, <em>our</em>beliefs, Malfoy? Real funny coming from you, where’s the slicked back boy who called me a mudblood multiple times and sneered down at me for who I was?”</p><p>“Oh, get off of it, Granger! You’re really still upset over a schoolyard bully that’s been dead for years? I fight for <em>your side</em>now! My family has disowned me, the next time my father sees me, I’m sure he’ll send an <em>avada</em>my way, but here we are talking about how I insulted you? Get over it, are you expecting an apology? I was raised to hate you, what do you want from me?”</p><p>“<em>Get off of it? </em>You made my life miserable and you want me to believe that your beliefs have changed? You had a choice, sure your family believed that, but nothing was stopping you from breaking the mold!”</p><p>“How? Granger, I had no choice! You bloody twit, my family housed the Dark Lord, did you want me to voice my discomfort? I wouldn’t be here!”</p><p>“You don’t have to tell me twice about your family, do you want to see my arm? Your aunt did that to me in your house while you stood and watched!” Her sleeve was yanked up and she was pressing her arm in his direction and he looked distinctly sick at the sight.</p><p>“I know,” was all he said before he was stomping off and slamming his bedroom door behind him. The door reverberated in the frame and a picture fell off the wall, the glass shattering upon impact. She just stared in his direction, her shoulders rising and falling with each intake of breath.</p><p>Pre-War Hermione might’ve felt guilty for the storm of emotions thundering behind his eyes at her reminder of his failures. Post-War Hermione was preoccupied focusing on her anger just so she didn’t feel guilty. She would dream about <em>that</em>day when she finally climbed into bed for the night. She saw him helping her. It never ended with him alive. She realized maybe she was wrong, at least about some aspects of the situation. Maybe.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. [two]</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>this one spans quite a few days</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <strong>187 Days After</strong>
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</p><p>Lupin sent a Patronus. He told her that he can’t be with her for the next full moon, something about Moody and a confidential mission and he couldn’t leave their location.</p><p>She sat in the bathroom alone, her back pressed up against the edge of the tub for hours, wishing for tears that never came. She had never felt so lonely in her life, even when she took her parents memories and she ceased to exist in their lives, even when she was attacked, even when she was the odd one out from the Golden Trio. She was surrounded by the boys for years, even if they preferred each other’s company to hers.</p><p>The laughter from the living room stopped when she walked by. She had never been so alone.</p><p> </p><p>
  <strong>191 Days After</strong>
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</p><p>The full moon was tonight. She dosed her tea with double the correct amount of wolfsbane each time she made a cup. Malfoy appeared before her minutes before sunset.</p><p>“You ready?” His voice was soft, and she jolted away from him at the sound. His eyes were carefully blank as he met hers.</p><p>“What?” Her voice was hoarse, likely from the burns she’d inflicted on herself from the potion.</p><p>“Lupin sent me a Patronus, said I’m to keep an eye on you during your transformation tonight.”</p><p>“But – “</p><p>“Something about how he thinks I’m the only one who would be willing to hex you enough if you attacked.”</p><p>She wanted to continue protesting, but something in his eyes stopped her.</p><p>“Besides, I saw you practically chugging that potion throughout the day, I’d be surprised if you’re violent in any way, even if you hate me.”</p><p>She wanted to say she didn’t hate him, but she was not sure about that if she was honest, so she just nodded.</p><p>“It’s not going to be pretty, Malfoy.”</p><p>“I wasn’t expecting pretty.” </p><p>She subconsciously reached up to trace the jags across her face and resigned to silence.</p><p>“Bloody hell, Granger, I didn’t mean your scars. I meant the transformation.” He offered her no further explanation and she wished her heart didn’t clench at the prospect of someone finding her <em>pretty</em>even with the scars. He didn’t say that though, so she was stuck shaking her head at herself.</p><p>She hated that he saw this, hated that Draco Malfoy, of all people saw her at her lowest. That he saw her as she collapsed to the floor, a wail breaking from her throat. Each successive transformation had remained as painful and long and unwelcomed as the first and she watched him leaning against a tree, studying her as her bones broke and she landed on all fours. He had a carefully blank look across his face, as if he had to put in effort to keep his face still, his eyes cold.</p><p>She spotted the flicker of surprise in his eyes as she reached full wolf form. Tonks told her that she was really a beautiful wolf, not that Hermione cared, she still hated this part of her. Her fur rivaled her hair color and flowed in the wind, brown and slated in the dark, but Tonks said she swore it seemed to absorb the moonlight, glowing iridescently.</p><p>Her eyes apparently remained the same as her human ones and Hermione felt disgust the first time, she heard that, but as she met Malfoy’s eyes from across the way, she was grateful that at least some part of her was the same.</p><p>She didn’t attack him, but she wandered throughout the forest and she could smell him behind her, hear his careful footsteps avoiding branches.</p><p>He was at her side when she turned human once more and handed her the spare clothes she had packed and when she was too tired and sore to carry her own feet back to the safe house, he carried her on his back and silently set her on her bed. She was too tired to thank him and just let her hand trail across his arm before meeting his hand. He was gone before she even shut her eyes.</p><p> </p><p>
  <strong>206 Days Later</strong>
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</p><p>She killed her first person that day. It was warm and sunny and absolutely not the type of day she’d want to associate with her first kill. She didn’t recognize the Death Eater as he fell from her curse, not even when she stopped at his body and pulled his bone mask off of his face.</p><p>He was nameless to her and she was left wondering about who he might’ve left behind in his death. A partner? He didn’t look old enough to have kids, maybe a couple years older than her and she had to stop herself from seeing if he had even received the mark yet. He was hurling dark curse after dark curse after her team and that was <em>enough</em>.</p><p>She couldn’t stop the bile that spilled from her mouth, though, and a dark, almost numbing sensation ate at her bones as she continued to fire at the encroaching army. She couldn’t push the killing words out of her mouth as she raised her wand, but she sent multiple altered slicing hexes and watched as the necks of three Death Eaters had red smiles carved into them before they fell in heaps. She was not sure if this was worse.</p><p>When they returned home, smoke-laden with blood and mud splattered over their clothes, Hermione didn’t raise her head from the floor. She reached the bathroom and let her disgust leave her body into the toilet. She didn’t think she’d ever forgive herself even as she catalogued the rest of her team. <em>Alive</em>.</p><p>She slumped against the toilet, exhaust and fatigue weighing down her bones from magic overuse.</p><p>Seamus, Padma, Neville, Ernie, and Malfoy. Her team for this mission was all alive and that’ was enough. Even with the cuts and scrapes and new scars to litter their bodies, they were <em>alive</em>.</p><p>Neville found her in the bathroom and had to carry her to her bedroom. She knew he had killed before; she knew they were not supposed to talk about it, but she couldn’t help the words that slipped past her lips.</p><p>“I’m a murderer.” They came out broken and whispered but he heard them. He simply helped her change and tucked her into bed.</p><p>“So am I.” His eyes were haunted when he responded and she knew he too was thinking about those he’d killed and the glassy, empty gaze of their dead eyes that she knew wouldn’t leave her, no matter how hard she tried.</p><p>He kissed her cheek before he left her alone. She wouldn’t sleep that night even as her body cried for rest. Tearless sobs wracked her body, she wanted to cry, she wanted the salty relief they gave but her wishes weren’t granted. A broken laugh escaped her at the karma.</p><p> </p><p>
  <strong>207 Days After</strong>
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</p><p>She didn’t get out of bed the next day, not to eat, not to shower. Neville joined her eventually and laid next to her, their shoulders touching while they stared up at the ceiling. She’d enchanted it to look like the Great Hall’s ceiling and they both were feeling nostalgic as they gazed at the magic stars above them.</p><p>She pointed out the Draco constellation and now they were talking about said blond.</p><p>“Do you think he’s really changed?”</p><p>“I don’t know, Mione, but he’s saved my life at least twice now and has done so much for these missions between planning and actually following through with them. He deserves the benefit of the doubt, at the very least. He gave up a lot to fight with us, for us, alongside us. He should be treated as one of us unless he proves otherwise.”</p><p>She found herself agreeing, even despite all her anger towards him, but with the isolation she had been given over her attack and her newfound condition, she had found herself with plenty of free time to think, when they were not in a battle, at least. She realized that she was so angry with how they were treating her, that they were treating her like how they were him, and that perhaps they shouldn’t be treating <em>either </em>of them like that.</p><p>He had only been a boy when he was tasked with killing Dumbledore and he couldn’t even follow through with it. Harry had told her about Bellatrix at his back, pushing him to do it, anything to follow through, and how his hand had shaken more in response. He said he had been crying to their headmaster.</p><p>How could she treat him as anything other than a boy that had done everything, he was set up to do. If the roles were reversed and she was raised in that family and it was kill or be killed, she’d probably do the same thing. Now that she has done the whole kill or be killed action, she was not sure she could continue to view herself as better than someone who had abandoned the values, he was raised with to fight against his family at every cost against himself.</p><p> </p><p>
  <strong>231 Days After</strong>
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</p><p>She found herself sitting next to him whenever there was an opening. He gave her dirty looks in the beginning, but when she didn’t yell at him or attack him, he seemed to resign to their newfound peace. They weren’t friends, she was not sure they ever will be. But Malfoy treated her as if she was the same person she always had been and she treated him as the new Malfoy instead of the old. And it was enough.</p><p>One night she chanced a conversation and he begrudgingly humored her.</p><p>“Do you ever think about how pumpkin juice is kind of a disgusting drink? Why does the wizarding world like it so much?”</p><p>“Is pumpkin juice not a muggle delight?” His voice was painted with amusement and she had let her lips curl up slightly at the ease in the air around them.</p><p>“Well, no, I’m sure it exists somewhere, but it is not an everyday commodity like it is here. It’s honestly disgusting.” She was glaring at her cup filled with said drink and when she pushed it away from her on the coffee table, he laughed, and it might have been one of the best sounds she’d ever heard, and it was infectious and suddenly she was laughing.</p><p>Her body was shaking as the laughter continued to spill out of her and she accidentally knocked her cup over and then they were laughing over the orange drink spilling onto the floor. She looked at him as he laughed and noted the way his eyes crinkled and the laugh lines that emerged on his face when he let his guard down. When his eyes met hers, her cheeks reddened, and she averted her gaze back to the spilled beverage.</p><p>She still didn’t think they were friends, nor had she forgiven him for everything he’d done, but he treated her like she was a person and she found herself thinking that maybe that was enough.</p><p>She turned 18 while seated on a grimy red couch in a quiet safe house while next to Draco Malfoy and it was enough.</p><p> </p><p>
  <strong>247 Days After </strong>
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</p><p>Fred kissed her. She wasn’t expecting it, but she didn’t push him away. Instead, she reached her hands up to trace his cheekbones and his arms tightened around her and she reveled in the way that he felt against her.</p><p>She knew it was a mistake and she knew he knew it too. But they stayed pressed together, their lips consuming each other and when Hermione pulled back to gasp in air, his lips traced a path across her jaw before following the curve of the scars down her neck. She bit back a moan at the feeling and at the knowledge that he still found her attractive even with the way her face was disfigured. Her head lulled back at the feeling and granted him further access to her neck and she just let him kiss her, let him make her feel pretty. </p><p>She knew it was wrong and continued to know it was wrong when they made their way from the hallway to her bedroom. She didn’t pull away from the kiss until both of their shirts were off and his hands had reached the button of her jeans. When she met his eyes, she saw the deep pain swimming within them, and she kissed his forehead and held him against her while he cried. Later that night when tears trailed down her cheeks, he kissed them away and told her that she was beautiful, and Ron was a fool and she cried harder.</p><p> </p><p>
  <strong>266 Days After</strong>
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</p><p>The building was on fire. Smoke was filling her lungs and twisting and swirling about in her lungs and she had to cough in an attempt to get it out. She was half carrying, half dragging an unconscious Seamus out of the building. How she wasn’t unconscious was beyond her, but likely due to her increased healing time from being a werewolf. Somehow, it made her slightly grateful for her condition, if only to get the rest of her team out of the smoking building.</p><p>She was not sure if the fire was an accidental misfiring of a hex or if the Death Eaters started it on purpose, but Hermione had fired 4 killing curses all with Seamus in her grasp, so she was leaning towards a purposeful fire. Blood leaked down her leg and fire licked up onto her elbows. Ragged cries escaped her lips as she adjusted her grip on her fellow ex-Gryffindor.</p><p>Her hands hurt to close around his arm, the fresh burns causing harsh friction at each movement. Sweat dripped down her back and sent a renewed and sharpened focus to her mind. She blinked and blinked and finally had Seamus in the clear and side apparated him to St. Mungo’s, just like she did to Padma, Ernie, and Neville in the grass before returning. She was missing one. Malfoy.</p><p>Swearing, Hermione turned away and headed back into the burning hideout. She would not be leaving any man behind today. Even if he was already dead, which she prayed he wasn’t. Her burns were already healed, and she broke into a sprint as the feeling of health reinvigorated her bones. The smoke irritated her eyes and she felt them watering down her cheeks and threw open door after door to find her teammate. She had to force her entire weight against one of the upper floor doors and found Malfoy laying on the floor, coughing as blood leaked out of a wound in his chest.</p><p>The fire hadn’t reached inside the room, but there was smoke billowing in from under the door she shut behind her.</p><p>“Fuck, hey, Malfoy, stay with me.” She was kneeling next to him, her eyes on his chest wound, it’s not deep, he’d survive it if he could survive the smoke inhalation. She pulled a portkey from her pocket and wrapped his hand around it, so it took the both of them to the magical hospital. She was heaving from the travel when the nurses scampered about the two of them. They took Malfoy first, at her insistence, <em>I’m fine, I’m fine, heal him</em>.</p><p>She passed out before they came back for her. The last thought she had before she leaves consciousness was that they better save her team.</p><p> </p><p>
  <strong>267 Days Later</strong>
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</p><p>“What the <em>hell</em>were you thinking?”</p><p>She stuck her chin up, looking at him down her nose. She just walked into his hospital room and he was already yelling at her.</p><p>“Wow, no ‘thanks for saving my life’, I just get scolded, good to know.”</p><p>She was slightly dosed up on whatever potion they gave her for her char-filled lungs, as all her external wounds were already healed up. <em>Thanks lycanthropy.</em></p><p>“Yes, you get <em>scolded</em>because you risked your life! Five times, are you stupid?”</p><p>“Malfoy! I heal faster and I wasn’t going to leave a single member of my team behind to die!”</p><p>“You should’ve left me!”</p><p>“Last I checked you bloody git, you are <em>part of my team</em>. I will never leave one of my own behind to die!”</p><p>“<em>You </em>could’ve died!”</p><p>He was seething and his face was red, and his breathing was ragged when he tried to stand up from the hospital bed. When he faltered slightly, she was by his side, laying him back down. He ripped his arm from her grip and continued to glare at her. She stumbled back from him due to the sheer <em>power</em>held in his slate grey eyes. She couldn’t discern the emotions fighting within them though. Anger, concern, something else.</p><p>“Oh, get off of it, Malfoy. My team is more important!”</p><p>“Stop being so bloody self-sacrificial and moral! You’re such a Gryffindor!”</p><p>“And you’re such a Slytherin! I would have thought your self-preservation skills would be worshipping me at my feet for saving your life.”</p><p>All Hermione wanted to do was make sure he was okay. That was all she wanted when she wandered into his room. She had to do some digging to find the room number and it wasn’t her proudest moment when she snuck into the healers’ cubicle and searched his name in the logs, but no one had to know.</p><p>“Oh, yes, forgive me for my lack of manners. I should be on my knees because you saved my life after risking yours several times! Forgive me for caring about you and not wanting you to die!”</p><p>She faltered again and nearly tripped as she steps towards the wall behind her. She was breathing so heavily that her shoulders were stuttering up and down as she struggled to pull air into her lungs. Her fists were clenched around the fabric of her jumper and it was taking everything in her not to cry at the sheer fact that he said he cared about her.</p><p>She knew she cared about him, she valued her team and their lives more than her own most of the time. Hermione was almost certain that this war would kill her, but she’d be damned if she didn’t save each and every single one of the members of her team. She knew that she’d give all of her for the people she loved, and this only increased when she became a werewolf. She wondered if the lycanthropy made her exist only in the extremes or if that was the war.</p><p>“Granger, are you okay?”</p><p>“Yes,” She was still reeling at his confession, but she shook her head to snap herself out of it. “Yes.”</p><p>“I care about you, it’s hard not to. Please don’t risk your life for mine again, promise me.” His voice was firm, almost harder than it had been when he was yelling at her and she almost preferred the loud, angry Malfoy to the quiet anger that was in front of her now.</p><p>“I can’t promise that.”</p><p>She didn’t look at him or wait for his response, she just left the room, gave him a taste of his own medicine for once. She <em>couldn’t </em>promise him that she wouldn’t lay her life down for him, but she was coming to the realization that she also <em>wouldn’t</em>promise it.</p><p>She cared about him more than just as a member of her team and she would jump in front of a killing curse for the man same as she would for Harry. The undying loyalty scared her, she’d never felt this kind of devotion for someone besides her best friends and she hadn’t seen them in so long that it was enough to make her want to hide under the blankets. Devotion like that was dangerous. Especially when it was devotion to Malfoy, of all people. Undying loyalty gets people killed.</p><p>Again, she wondered if it was part of the werewolf condition to make her exist in extremes. She’d have to ask Lupin.</p><p> </p><p>
  <strong>270 Days After</strong>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>“Granger, you’ll be leading this mission with your standard team. According to the layouts, the six of you will approach from the North entrance. I want two of you to go around to the East, two of you to the South, and the last two will split up while one heads to the West while the other blows up the North entrance before joining again at the West. Is that clear?”</p><p>“You want six of us to take down a Death Eater hideout and part of your plan is to leave one of the entrances down to one person?” It was not her that responded, but Malfoy, clear indignation in his voice. His hand slammed down on the table and shook the entire thing, “That’s not nearly enough people for that idiotic plan to be successful.” He was practically seething, his lips curled in a snarl as his spat his words towards the <em>professional</em>Auror who was laying out plans for them.</p><p>“We don’t have any more people.” The Auror was stoically calm compared to Malfoy, but she saw the tension building in his shoulders and the crease that formed around his lips.</p><p>“So, send some of your people!” It was Neville this time, his face tight as his thinned his lips. Malfoy’s anger was started to radiate in waves off of him and she noticed that the others were angry too. Seamus was clenching his pen so tight his knuckles were white and his face nearly matched his hair. Padma had her fingers curled in, so her fingernails pushed into her palm, her eyes squinting at the Auror as he continued to defend the sloppy plan. Even Ernie looked angry, he was sending daggers at the man and his jaw was tightly clenched.</p><p>“My people are all accounted for on other missions.”</p><p>“Auror Jackson, you cannot expect this plan to succeed, it just won’t work.” This was her, she was angry, but people expected big emotions from her ever since the attack and she would not meet those expectations, her voice instead was calm and even and unwavering as she stared the man down. He didn’t meet her eyes, his eyes laving over her scars like most people did when they looked directly at her.</p><p>“Granger, you will make this plan work, or you can see yourself elsewhere. Subordination is not tolerated, even by Phoenix members.”</p><p>Either enter a battle unprepared and undermanned or leave the Order. She laughed at the man before taking the layouts from him and leaving the meeting room. It was pathetic the way they seemed so easily threatened by the tiniest of refusals.</p><p>She wondered offhandedly if Moody sanctioned this plan or if the Auror were behind it. She didn’t look at the signature at the bottom of the paper, she didn’t want to know if Moody signed off on the deaths of six teenagers pretending to be soldiers.</p><p> </p><p>
  <strong>272 Days After</strong>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>The plan didn’t work. She knew it wouldn’t, the second they approached the brooding building, Hermione changed the plan. She was not risking the lives of her team. Malfoy met her eyes after they both looked between the building and the layouts and realized they were faulty. They were set up to fail and Hermione would be damned if they failed.</p><p>Her, Neville, and Malfoy would be entering the building from the North to distract the Death Eaters inside while each of the other members ran to the other entrances and blew them up so no one could escape except from the North. There were obvious faults, including the fact that that meant they could also only leave through the North. She hoped it didn’t come to that. The other three would then come back to the North and all six would resume fighting.</p><p>They made it out all alive. Neville had a broken arm and Ernie had a deep cut across the length of his chest, but they had managed to capture one of the Death Eaters there. Auror Jackson was dead from one of his own missions and Hermione felt sick for being upset that she couldn’t gloat about his failed plans.</p><p> </p><p>
  <strong>275 Days After</strong>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>Hermione came into the kitchen with wet hair from her shower and stopped to a halt at the sight of Malfoy and Neville playing chess.</p><p>“Oh, hey, Mione,” Neville offered a greeting without even looking up from his moves. There was a bottle of cheap whiskey on the table and it was half empty. Dangerous.</p><p>Malfoy looked up and smirked at her, his eyes trailing down her body to her bare legs in her pajama shorts. She could practically feel the heat of his gaze and fidgeted before making her way over to where they were sitting. She didn’t like chess, but the magic behind Wizard’s Chess had always fascinated her, so she sat, and she stared in fascination as the two men made moves and the pieces destroyed each other.</p><p>The brunette was too focused on the board to realize that Malfoy sent glances her way every time Neville took too long to consider a move, his eyes trailing over her wet hair and the way the curls bounced every time she moved her head and the way her eyes held such a blazing fire, even after all they had gone through in this war.</p><p>She walked in on Malfoy receiving head from some female auror in the kitchen later that day and gagged at the sight. “Get a room, you prat.” She spat, less venom in her words than she had intended, and Malfoy’s eyes sparkled in amusement when they met hers above the blonde’s head. She retreated to her room with too much of an image of the former Slytherin and woke up gasping from a dream of her replacing the blonde woman in the kitchen. The heat spreading in her core caused her to nearly retch.</p><p> </p><p>
  <strong>282 Days After</strong>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>The night after she walked into Malfoy and his conquest, the unlikely duo had sat on the couch and talked for hours. Neither could sleep and she just wanted to talk to someone, and he was there, and he laughed at her jokes and kept conversation going. They had started a sort of routine of being the one to keep the other sane at ungodly hours.</p><p>She found out many things during these rendezvous. Including that he still got mad if someone brought up his father and even angrier if someone brought up Narcissa. He loved candies and would raid the kitchens in the safe house just trying to find some sugar. His favorite color was green, but he swore it wasn’t because of his former house, but she knew better than to trust the Slytherin, House pride ran deep, after all.</p><p>He was steadily becoming a person, no longer the bully or the Death Eater or the runaway. What was even worse was that she was enjoying spending time with this person.</p><p>They were currently sat feet apart on the couch, the TV was on in the background, turned onto one of those reality shows that Malfoy enjoyed so much. They weren’t watching the show, however, they were facing each other as Hermione taught him the game of rock-paper-scissors.</p><p>“How the bloody hell does <em>paper</em>beat <em>rock</em>? You’re lying to me, what kind of muggle game is this?”</p><p>She busted out laughing so hard that she could feel tears tracing their way down her face, her hand came up to cover her mouth as she fought hard to calm herself. Malfoy started laughing too and suddenly they were a loud, happy mess.</p><p>Hermione snuck a glance towards Malfoy and was stunned to see the way happiness looked on him. His grey eyes had lightened, the watery film from his laughing tears creating a blue shine that could easily beat the ocean for being the most beautiful thing she’d ever seen. He had deep laugh lines that spread out from his mouth in ecstatic fissures. His typically refined platinum hair was now ruffled and dangling over his forehead from the continuous motion of him running his hand through it.</p><p>She’d never had such a strong urge to paint before. Hermione was no artist but looking at the masterpiece sitting in front of her, she’d sell her soul to be able to capture this moment.</p><p> </p><p>
  <strong>289 Days After</strong>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>She had spent the entire day reading and reading and reading and her eyes were starting to hurt. But stopping meant thinking and thinking meant realizing that she has killed <em>people,</em>and no one knows when the war will be over, and she missed her friends and the fact that month after month she has to endure her body contorting itself to become an entirely different creature. She wasn’t sure she could handle that, if she was honest. Could anyone? She had entire conversations with Padma, Parvati, and Lavender about how just the mere thought of having to brush their teeth twice a day every day for the rest of their lives overwhelmed them. Now she felt like the fact that she was a <em>werewolf</em>was going to consume her whole. Expand underneath her like a black hole and absorb her very existence.</p><p>She should be sleeping right now. She’ll likely be thrown into a mission tomorrow and it was half an hour past 2 in the morning. But she couldn’t. Every time she closed her eyes, she was met with an image of her <em>murdering</em>someone and overwhelming anxiety bubbling within her chest, threatening to suffocate her.</p><p>Walking to the kitchen in the old, almost falling apart safe house was a good way to spark nerves in her already almost trembling body. So, who could blame her when she jumped a mile before shoving her wand into whoever was already in the kitchen? She should’ve noticed the luminescent silver hair, but she was too focused on where her wand was already pressed into skin – skin that had a giant hand-shaped bruise covering its light expanse.</p><p>“Granger, what the hell are you doing?” She was so close to the body in front of her that his growl reverberated throughout her own. She knew that voice. Her eyes snapped up to his face while she lowered her wand. But she didn’t step away. He was warm and she was <em>sososo</em>cold and desperate for touch and affection and she didn’t care that her body was pressed up against his so she could feel the lines of muscle under his jumper. She only cared that she could feel someone’s body against hers, she just couldn’t find it in her to care that it was him. She knew she should, her friends hated him, Ron hated him, Harry hated him. But how could she care when she hadn’t seen them in forever and they treated her different ever since her attack. Malfoy hadn’t, not once.</p><p>His eyes were tracing over her scars like they were paint lines in a million-dollar masterpiece and her fingers were dusting over the bruise on his neck. When she touched a particularly delicate spot, he sucked in a sharp breath of air, she almost apologized, but she was too busy thinking about the noise and watching the way her fingers looked against his collarbone.</p><p>His fingers twitched by his side and her eyes shifted to the movement and back up to his face. His eyes were still brushing over her face and she could feel her cheeks heat up under his gaze, which sparked his hands movements. One cupped her left cheek, while the other came up to the right side of her forehead and traced the puckered scars that littered her face down to her left collarbone. His fingers had to disappear under the neck of her sweater to reach the ending of her scars and she gasped at the feeling. Silver immediately met her gaze and she blushed harder.</p><p>He leaned his head forward and she had half a thought that he would kiss her. Maybe if she was someone different and he was someone different, but his lips met her forehead before moving to her ear. “Your scars are a part of who you are now, they’re the furthest thing from ugly.”</p><p>She was still thinking of a response when she realized she was cold, and he was gone. She wanted to kiss him, screw if they could only work if they were different people. But she was too late to this realization. They would be sent on separate missions the next day. Later she’ll blame the upcoming full moon for her irrational emotions.</p><p> </p><p>
  <strong>292 Days After </strong>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>It was the full moon again. Hermione had sent a letter to Lupin days ago and was beginning to get frustrated over the lack of response. She knew he was busy; he was one of the higher-ups within the Order, she figured he was probably third-in-command behind Moody and Shacklebot.</p><p>But what she was really frustrated over was the deep fear that was doing loop-de-loops within her stomach over spending the full moon alone. She had sent him a Patronus earlier that day and still hadn’t received a reply. She had half a mind to send another when Malfoy waltzed into the room. The loop-de-loops in her stomach accelerated, but she wasn’t positive they were still from fear. She hated that she was suddenly attracted to him. Or rather that she could admire his attractiveness now that he wasn’t her enemy.</p><p>“Granger.” She also hated that she could pick him out of a room, his hair and stature and the way he <em>walked</em>and his voice. She knew him and his quirks and random things that made him…him.</p><p>“Granger.” She was staring at the ground and couldn’t meet his eyes, the hindsight embarrassment over what she did to him in the kitchen, the way her fingers traced his skin. She was even more embarrassed over his compliment. She was insecure about her scars and anybody with eyes could pick that out, but to have Malfoy remind her that she was still beautiful, or at least not ugly, was worse.</p><p>“Granger!” He was shaking her shoulders now, his thumbs curving up and into her collarbones. She hated that his touch, even a touch as simple as that made her body heat up. Her honey brown eyes met his ones of steel and her breath caught in her throat.</p><p>“What?” The word barely slipped out of her mouth, coming out breathy and soft and she blushed at the sound of it.</p><p>“Lupin sent me again.” Once again, he offered no further information and she had to fist her hands to prevent them from hitting the superiority out of him.</p><p>“Oh. Alright.”</p><p>“Have you taken the wolfsbane yet?” He hadn’t stepped back from her, but his hands were stuffed far into his pockets, almost as if restraining himself from touching her.</p><p>“Yeah, it’s been in my tea all day. I’ll take it straight in about 20 minutes, when its closer to the sunset.”</p><p>He nodded at her before making his way to the living room and plopping himself down on the couch. This safe house had a tv and while she hadn’t utilized it, she knew Malfoy enjoyed watching those ridiculous reality shows. She sat down in the arm-chair adjacent to the couch and curled up under a blanket. She was so not looking forward to him seeing her at her lowest <em>again</em>. She couldn’t force herself to meet his eyes anymore, not when she knew he’d be seeing her eyes in the face of a wolf come sundown.</p><p>Like she expected, he flipped on a reality show and settled further into the couch to watch it. She was fidgety and anxious and couldn’t sit still and Malfoy sent sharp looks at her every time she moved, which only made her more fidgety.</p><p>Come sundown, she gulped down the sharp wolfsbane and grimaced at the burn that etched its way down her throat as Malfoy watched her. It was colder out that night, as winter was approaching and she felt herself shiver as she was only in shorts and a t shirt, she didn’t like ruining nice or thick clothes that could be useful during her transformation.</p><p>“Ready to go?” She could only spare a small smile in response as they began trekking towards the forest. Malfoy’s boots squelched in the mud and Hermione’s bare feet had to resist the suctioning effect with each step.</p><p>The transformation started as it usually did, the bones in her shoulders breaking repeatedly to heal bigger and squarer, loud cries escaping her mouth. Malfoy was leaning against a tree, a carefully blank expression carved into his face, but she saw the tension in his shoulders and the way his nails dug into his palms. She knew seeing this wasn’t pretty, he told her as much, but the way pain flashed in his eyes before disappearing into grey stone each time she screamed told her exactly how ugly this was to see.</p><p>Before she knew it, she was running around on all fours and the wolfsbane was flowing heavily in her veins. She could pick up on Malfoy’s scent more than normal and she felt herself drawn to him. She approached him slowly and tilted her head as he hadn’t drawn his wand at her. Instead, he slowly sat down onto the ground and spread his legs slightly.</p><p>As soon as she reached him, she curled up into a ball next his legs. She could feel the hesitation in his body, so she nudged her head forward and rested it atop his thigh. His hands stroked through her fur and she couldn’t stop the sounds of contentment that escaped her. She fell asleep curled up with his hands in her fur and she couldn’t help but think that this was the most peaceful full moon she’d ever experienced.</p><p> </p><p>
  <strong>293 Days After</strong>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>She woke up on the couch curled in one corner and realized that the weight pressed on top of her legs was Malfoy’s legs entwined with hers. He was curled up on the other side of the couch, one of his arms thrown over his face, while the other gripped onto his wand. Hermione also realized that there was a thick blanket thrown over her and that she was dressed in a dark green jumper and a pair of boxers – Malfoy’s clothes.</p><p>She must’ve slept through her transformation back into a human. Her face began to burn as she processed what this development meant. She slept through her transformation back. She would’ve woken up naked and in Malfoy’s lap. He had to have carried her back to the safe house and then dressed her. He put her on the couch and covered her with a blanket. He even stayed with her on the couch instead of going to his room to sleep. His legs were twisted with hers.</p><p>He looked young in his sleep. His face was relaxed, and his shoulders seemed loose. She had to move though, but she was struck with the sharp need not to wake him, to let him remain young and innocent for as long as possible. She got up as carefully as she could, trying not to disturb him. Failure dawned as he started stirring, his wand hand twitching before he jolted upright, his wand pointed at her.</p><p>“It’s just me, Malfoy.” His eyes blinked slowly at her before widening and his hand jerked back to his side. He pursed his lips before looking away from her. She could see the way his shoulders tightened, and his face turned almost sour the second he woke up.</p><p>“What happened? Did I sleep through the sunrise?” She already knew the answer, but for some reason she wanted to hear what he had to say about it. She’s not sure it’ll be nice or friendly or in any way what she wanted to hear, but she had to hear it from him.</p><p>“You woke up but weren’t very lucid, told me to carry you or leave you behind, you wouldn’t be moving when you were that comfortable.” His voice was stained with sleep, but his silver eyes sparkled with amusement in a way that forced a blush onto her cheeks. The deep and raspy way his voice echoed into her core had her blush deepen even more.</p><p>“Oh, sorry.” Her voice was smaller than she would’ve hoped, coming out as a soft murmur. She would’ve felt embarrassed, but the hard lines around Malfoy’s mouth soften as it broke into a smile. An actual smile, not a smirk or a cruel, mocking grin, but a contented smile.</p><p>She was sure it was because he was tired and sleep still settled in the cracks and crevices of his brain and he was not sure what he’s doing when his hand reached forward and twisted a curl in his fingers. She was sure it was because she was tired, and the full moon took everything out of her, and she was not thinking properly when she leaned into his hand as it curved around her cheek.</p><p>She knew better than to think this would happen on a normal day, when their brains were functioning at proper speed. She no longer despised Lupin for leaving her with Malfoy during the full moon.</p><p> </p><p>
  <strong>300 Days After</strong>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>“What the bloody hell is <em>that</em>supposed to mean?”</p><p>They were yelling, she was not sure how it escalated this fast, but the anger was brewing within her, her screams coming out like she was a shrieking teapot. It had been almost a year since she last saw him, and now her face was as red as his hair and she was gulping air down like it was poison as her body heaved with the strain of yelling.</p><p>“Exactly what I said, Mione!”</p><p>His fingers kept raking through his hair and she wished she could hug him and play with his locks like she used to for both him and Harry. Except now they’ve been off playing hide and seek with Voldemort’s horcruxes <em>without </em>her and she was littered in scars and a beast. Ron didn’t want her anymore. But he wasn’t above judging her for the ways she got along without him.</p><p>“Really? Really, Ronald? You disappear for almost a year after <em>crying</em>when you saw me and now, you’re mad that I snogged your brother? You’re the one that can barely look me in the eyes anymore, so excuse me for assuming that meant you and I would never be more than friends, if we can even be that again. Fred and I…” Her throat was hoarse from yelling and she could feel the familiar ache in the back of it from tears that kept threatening to appear. She was not sure she’d <em>ever</em>been this mad at Ron before. Her voice softened to prevent the salt from slipping out of her eyes, but maybe that made it worse. “We both just wanted comfort, that’s all. It only happened once.”</p><p>It was true. If Ron was going to mad at something, he should be mad at her for growing feelings for Malfoy. But he didn’t know that - no one did - and she wasn’t going to be admitting to it tonight.</p><p>“I’m supposed to look you in the eyes when you’ve made yourself into some sort of slag? What’s next? You going to jump in bed with Lupin because he’s the only that one that understands you?”</p><p>His words hit her like some sort of train and knocked her back against the wall as she stifled a gasp at his words. Her tears started falling, but her voice hardened as she shoves a finger in his chest and pushed him away from her.</p><p>“You can be mad at me, but you have <em>no</em>right to be cruel, Ronald Weasley. I’ve had enough of that from you. You cried at the sight at me, you cried! I didn’t realize I was that devastating of a sight just because I have some new scars. I’ll be a bloody slag all I want if that’s what makes me happy and you get to have <em>no</em>say in it. This is my life and I get to find what makes me happy even if I’m now a sullied half-breed, you arse!”</p><p>She left him standing there in the kitchen and didn’t look back. She didn’t look back when she walked into Fred’s room. And she certainly didn’t look back when he held her as tears slipped down her face. If Fred noticed the tears, he didn’t say, and she was grateful. He simply let her take up his bed even when she cried harder. He held her until she fell asleep and her tears finally dried.</p><p>She chose Fred’s room to make Ron angrier and Fred knew this, but he held her, nonetheless. Her presence always provided him comfort, even when she was using him. She could barely recognize Ron, she was having a hard time separating the cold man he seemed to have become from the warm, rich boy he was. Sure, he had been mean to her before, but he had never been so cold-heartedly cruel before. The war affected them all, after all.</p><p> </p><p>
  <strong>305 Days After</strong>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>“Do you think we’ll win?”</p><p>“Hmm?”</p><p>They were sitting on that god forsaken couch again, barely inches between their legs. He was sitting with a leg up, one of his arms propping his head up against the back of the couch, facing her, taking her in while she talked. She was also facing him, sitting cross-legged on the cushion next to his.</p><p>“Do you think we’ll beat Voldemort? The death eaters?”</p><p>“We have to.” He didn’t elaborate, didn’t continue further, but she understood. Pain, torture, death, and god knew what else would await them if they lost. They couldn’t.</p><p>“Do you think you’ll survive the war?”</p><p>“You can’t think like that, Granger. No one knows if they’ll make it out of this war alive, but spending time thinking about what could lead to your death is just wasting time you could be spending fighting to survive. If you’re worried, we could start sparring, keep your wand hand limber and speedy.”</p><p>“Sure, I’d like that.”</p><p>The conversation ended there, treading into lighter stuff while they tuned out the loud sounds of the former Gryffindors drinking in the kitchen. But she couldn’t stop thinking about it. She had always been a thinker, stuck in her head, her brain sometimes moving so fast she couldn’t pinpoint a train of thought or focus on an idea.</p><p>She never considered herself to have a hero complex, but she knew she could be martyrial. It wasn’t intentional, she just knew she would sacrifice everything, even her own life, to keep those she loved alive. She didn’t want to die, but she couldn’t live a life where her friends were gone. She wouldn’t, if she could help it. If it came to it, she knew what she would do.</p><p>She hoped she’d make it out of the war alive, she was looking forward to years of continuing the unlikely friendship she created with the blond man sitting next to her. There was so much more they could talk about – books they’ve both read, arithmetic theories, ancient runes – and some much more to learn about each other. She only really ever had these moments, the ones on the ugly couch, with him. They were stolen moments, moments that should’ve been spent sleeping or preparing, but minutes they both set aside for each other.</p><p>It had become a routine for them to avoid sleep, or maybe just avoid pretending sleep, in favor of sitting next to each other, sometimes in silence, sometimes wrapped in the sounds of the TV, sometimes the air clothed in their words.</p><p>If she ever wondered if any good would come out of this war, she only had to look next to her to see him.</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <strong>313 Days After</strong>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>She was sitting on the tattered couch in the living room working on writing mission plans in an even more tattered notebook. Mission leaders were in charge of too many things outside of just leading the mission, including helping draw up new strategies and pinpointing strengths and weaknesses of teams, reassigning teams, assigning missions.</p><p>She hated it. How was she supposed to decide who goes to what mission in which team and who goes on individual spying missions? How was she supposed to assign roles to people she went to school with? She can picture them all in their uniforms and she can still see the innocence in their eyes and she’s sending them on potentially fatal jobs.</p><p>“They signed up for it.” Her head snapped up to meet a voice above her and she met Malfoy’s unforgiving gaze. She was not sure his eyes would ever hold anything other than intensity and she wished it didn’t send a shiver down her spine when she thought about the different forms of intensity they could hold.</p><p>“What?”</p><p>“The Phoenix members, they signed up for it, they had their choices.”</p><p>“Wasn’t it just you who was screaming at me for not understanding how you didn’t really have choices at your disposal? Bold of you to assume everyone had the choice to join the Order.”</p><p>“Granger, I had impossible choices, I was too scared to choose the impossible until I wasn’t. That led me here. I had a choice, so did the rest of them.”</p><p>“How did you even know what I was thinking in the first place?”</p><p>“You were practically broadcasting your thoughts you were thinking so hard.”</p><p>“Oh, sod off.” But she was smiling again when she saw the soft lines around his mouth as it curved up for her. <em>For her</em>.</p><p> </p><p>
  <strong>321 Days After</strong>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>She was sweating, but it was cold outside. The juxtaposition of the two had her cringing as she broke into a sprint, sending curses towards the dozens of ivory masks behind her. She only knew they were hitting their target by the sounds of bodies thudding to the ground and the grunts their comrades gave when they nearly tripped on the new dead body in front of their feet.</p><p>Hermione could see the rest of her team running, colors flying from their wands. There was blood dripping from a wound on Malfoy’s forehead and she had to force herself to focus on the army behind her and not running to <em>episkey</em>his wound, especially when he was only feet away from her.</p><p>A hex hit her side and she scolded herself for the time she spent being distracted by the platinum blond. She could feel the burn begin to spread and she looked down to see her skin sizzling in front of her eyes as the dark curse spread along her ribs. <em>Fuck, fuck, fuck</em>. She forced herself to keep running, even as the acid curse reached her lung and the burn surfaced every time she dragged in air.</p><p>“Granger! Let’s call it a day!” It was from her left and if the world wasn’t spinning on its axis, she would’ve looked to where the voice came from. Instead, she threw a hex at the Death Eater behind her and continued to run. She was staggering, she could feel her body wobble from side to side as her feet pummeled the ground. Her face met the dirt before she could even reach her hands out to break her fall.</p><p>A Death Eater was above her, he looked familiar and she had to squint her eyes to keep her eyes focused on him. His grip on her hands above her head was painful, she forced her face to remain impassive, despite the pain thundering in her side that his knee was digging into. <em>It’ll heal, it’ll heal, Lupin said you have decreased healing time, perks of being a werewolf. </em></p><p>“How’s the mud taste?” His face was distorted into an ugly sneer, his bushy eyebrows and thin lips making the expression distasteful for the pureblood aristocracy he was raised in. Dolohov. So, he knows her. She was surprised one of Voldemort’s higher ups was even in this battle, after all there were only six kid soldiers from their side here.</p><p>“Here to finish the job?” She gathered spit and spit it at him, reveling in the satisfaction that there was blood in it, likely from biting her tongue when she fell, so now her muddied blood was on his face. Anger seemed to seep out of his ears now, she laughed lightly at the cartoon look that took over his features as his face was beet red to match her blood. She wondered if he was mad that her blood looked <em>exactly</em><em>like his</em>, did that interfere with his purist ideals?</p><p>“You will regret that, you filthy mudblood.”</p><p>His wand pressed her face upward and she tried a nonverbal <em>accio</em>to regain her own. It didn’t meet her fingers. She thrashed and fought, driving her knee up as high as she could as it slammed into the body above her. But his hold on her remained.</p><p>She cringed at the last option she had left. The full moon was in two days and she had been told she could <em>channel</em>some of that energy and inflict a partial transformation – grow claws or change her teeth, sharper hearing, the like – so she did. Her eyebrows furrowed in concentration and she threw her head forward against his, knocking him off balance and launched herself at the man before sinking her canine teeth deep into the muscles of his shoulder and <em>tore</em>. His screams filled her ears and she fell back from his now slouched figure. Blood dripping down her chin, she weakly turned away from him to find her team.</p><p><em>He won’t transform, he won’t transform, it’ll be like Bill, he’ll just gain a new affinity for meat</em>, she thought. But suddenly her heart clenched, and she remembered the curse he sent her way, the curse he invented to cause immense pain before death and she was doing another <em>accio</em>and this time her wand greeted her hand, magic shooting up her veins as she spun around with a yell.</p><p>She was too tired for an <em>avada,</em>so she sent her slicing hex his way and she was greeted with a smile stretching from ear to ear on his neck. Dolohov crumpled to a heap in the same spot she had lain, and she decided it was fitting for him to die in the spot covered in not only muggleborn blood, but also a half-breed’s blood. She wished she felt some sort of grief, or sadness, or guilt for taking his life, but she only had a sick satisfaction at him receiving karma. Now she knew another one of the many ways war changed a person.</p><p>She was running again before his soul even had a chance to leave his body. She saw her team fighting back-to-back as they waited for her. It was a technique she had come up with when she realized how leaving one-by-one left them vulnerable and potentially alone in a battlefield. Her heart warmed at the sight and she sprinted harder, her damaged lung stuttering as she breathed. So much for faster healing.</p><p>The second she was close enough, Malfoy reached out and pulled her into him and they portkey together back to base. The second her feet touched the wood floor of Grimmauld, Hermione fell to the side, the adrenaline sucked out of her completely, her hand was pressed tightly to her ribs and she let out a small cry at the pain that greeted her when the fight or flight response finally stopped its numbing powers.</p><p>“Hey, hey, Granger, stay with me,” Malfoy was hoisting her onto the table as he gestured wildly behind him for a healer. “We need a healer in here!”</p><p>He was leaning over her and she smiled when she realized that he looked like an angel with the light behind his head.</p><p>“Not a bad way to go,” it was a whisper, but he heard it, she didn’t know that she said that out loud in her delirium and he let her off the hook. Her hand caressed his cheek before falling as she faded into unconsciousness.</p><p> </p><p>
  <strong>322 Days After</strong>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>Rubbing the grogginess out of her eyes, Hermione met consciousness like a car accident as she slammed her head into the sideboard of the bed, she was in.</p><p>“Fuck,” she muttered, the sleep in her voice caused a rasp that made her sound sick. She was in the same room that they had put her in when she was attacked, and she was almost mad at the continuity. Looking around, she noticed the thick bandage wrapped around her torso, her shirt long gone leaving her in her muggle sports bra. She had only so many of them, but they were the only bra she’d wear when fighting. She was glad they left it on her, the clothes the healers took whenever they treated her had a tendency to disappear in the system of cleaning and sanitizing and she almost never got them back.</p><p>The room was empty, the sun was shining in from the window to the right of her bed and it illuminated the dust that was floating around in the room. This whole place could use a good dusting, she realized.</p><p>The side table next to the bed housed several empty potion bottles, including a bone regrowing one and Hermione’s eyebrows furrowed together at the sight. They had to regrow her bones? The curse must’ve spread to corroding her ribs, which made sense considering the burn she felt as it reached her lung.</p><p>Groaning, she forced herself to stand from the lumpy, old mattress. She was healed fully, either from her sped up healing or the magic healers, but that didn’t stop a dizzy spurt from hitting her forcefully causing her to hold her hand to her temple and gritting her teeth.</p><p>Before she could process what she was doing, she was unwrapping the thick bandage from around her ribs. Sucking in a harsh breath, her eyes traced the new scar that would its way up her side. She would be surprised if she made it out of this war whole with the way she kept getting butchered. Ironic that this was the second large scar from Dolohov.</p><p>Taking a deep breath, Hermione left the makeshift infirmary in search of someone, anyone. She didn’t think she cared who she found; she just wanted a person. The floor creaked under her feet and her fingers tangled with each other in a nervous tic. She walked from empty room to empty room as she wandered her way through Grimmauld Place. She heard boisterous laughter from the meeting room and forced herself to swallow as she started her path.</p><p>The majority of Dumbledore’s Army sat around the long table that typically was used for the Order and her heart clenched at the comparison. Seamus was pointing at Dean and he was laughing, laughing so hard his face was starting to turn red and Dean was blushing while his hand hovered over his propped-up leg.</p><p>It had literally been magic when they were able to save his leg. If they had been at a muggle hospital, he would have lost his leg, if not his life at the way the dark curse festered and spread. But Malfoy had found a stasis charm that was able to contain the spread to his leg while they looked for a cure or decided to amputate.</p><p>But all that said, it would never be the same, they weren’t sure he’d ever return to field work ever again. It had been months since the incident, but he still used a cane to walk and he experienced a plethora of phantom pains. He would be a liability in battle and so the Order was down yet another fighter.</p><p>Another to her list of faults, a giant red error on her judgement when she failed to kill. And now that she had, was she doing any better for it? She didn’t think so.</p><p>“Mione!” It was Neville and he stopped his conversation with the Patil twins to come greet her. His arms wrapped tightly around her, and she reveled in the warmth that he gave her. She sent him a grateful smile when he let her go and led her to a seat near him.</p><p>The laughter had quieted, once the room’s occupants noticed her in the room and it was taking everything in her not to snap. She was their friend, their former classmate, she shared a common room with more than half of them and had since spent hours upon hours in safe houses and in battlefields with these people. But they couldn’t stand the thought of laughing amidst her presence.</p><p>Her fists were clenched so tight she can feel her nails stinging against her skin and she forced them open and scanned the room. Neville, Luna, the Patil twins, Dean, Seamus, Lavender, Justin, Ernie, The Creeveys. Malfoy was sulking in the corner of the room, like someone dragged him into the room, like he couldn’t stand the thought of being around them. She believed it and thought it was likely Neville who brought him in, something about them not being in Hogwarts anymore and he needed to socialize with the side he was fighting with.</p><p>She realized he was also in the corner so the teenager soldiers seated around the table could interact as if he wasn’t even there.</p><p>He was leaning against the wall in a way that should appear slouched, but he did it with all the grace and dignity of a boy trained in the aristocratic ways of the Purebloods. She wondered if he could tell her the difference between a salad fork and a dessert fork too. His hands were stuffed into his pockets and his face scanned the room in bored amusement, like he was laughing at them all, but knew he could be somewhere else.</p><p>His body was tall and lean and lithe, and her eyes tracked down his figure to appreciate the solidness that war granted him. He looked like a tiger who could pounce at any second, his war instincts never leaving him. Constant vigilance, she thought with a laugh.</p><p>When his eyes met hers, she realized she’d been staring at him. His gaze narrowed and a shaped eyebrow curved upwards as he took in her appearance. She was still only in her sports bra and a pair of flannel pajama pants the healers must’ve put on her at some point. She couldn’t fight the blush that painted across her cheekbones and she broke first, searching the room for something else to look at.</p><p>The conversation was still droning on around her and desperation began to claw at her chest. Clenching her teeth, she pushed it back down and forced herself not to feel. She supposed it was better this way, to be detached from the group, so when she inevitably died in this war, they’d mourn her in the almost effortless, from afar method that war had forced upon them.</p><p>She knew that was how they’d mourn her death not from the way their eyes skipped over her as if she wasn’t there or how she was easily avoided in the chatter, but because that was how she mourned. Each time they lost someone Hermione mourned in the only way she knew how to anymore. She felt a distanced sort of sadness and then continued on. She didn’t have the time to acknowledge the losses that each battle brought, even when it was someone she knew.</p><p>She always said she’d grieve when it was over when Harry asked how she did it, his emotions tended to hit him harder, but she was sure now that that was always a lie. She was cold and logical and could avoid her emotions, the war didn’t do that, that was always who she was.</p><p>She supposed that maybe they would feel more than that, she was the coldhearted one here after all. When they lost DA members in a failed mission, she watched from the doorway into the living room as the others in the safehouse hugged each other and cried and others drank themselves into a stupor and others threw themselves into training. Especially in the beginning, when the wounds cut deep, and tear reservoirs were even deeper.</p><p>Hermione was in the category of those who the war made apathetic. She wouldn’t say she didn’t care, but there simply wasn’t time to mourn each death when she knew more would come before the end. It wasn’t healthy, but who was healthy during war?</p><p>“Hermione, how are you feeling?” She jerked out of her stupor and drifts her head to where Neville sat next to her.</p><p>“Hm? Oh, I’m fine, you know, accelerated healing and all,” she attempted to joke, and Neville let out a forced laugh and she flashed a grateful smile. She was sure he knew how awkward she felt, sitting there in a room that treated her as if she was contagious.</p><p>A loud laugh startled her, and she whipped her head around to find its source. It was Malfoy. Everyone at the table was glancing between the two of them as if they were sharing some secret that they wanted to know. Well, Hermione wanted to know what the secret was too, because she sure as hell didn’t know it.</p><p>“Werewolf jokes by a werewolf. Gotta appreciate the irony,” he drawled, tipping his head towards her before continuing his bored appraisal of the room.</p><p>“Hey, Mione, can you see the nargles now?” Luna’s whimsical voice echoed throughout the room for the first time that night. She supposed that the room treated Luna similarly to her now too, she did the same back at school. Loony Lovegood. She wanted to yell at her past self.</p><p>“Unfortunately, that is not one of my new abilities, Luna. I’ll let you know if I see one though,” sending a soft smile in the Ravenclaw’s direction, Hermione stood to leave the room. “See you guys later.”</p><p>Malfoy’s eyes tracked her as she exited, and she held her head higher under his stare.</p><p> </p><p>
  <strong>323 Days After</strong>
</p><p> </p><p>It was probably 3 or 4 in the morning and Hermione was laying in the grass, a thick sweater her only source of warmth. She should probably conjure a blanket or a cardigan or even cast a warming spell, but the cold matched how she feels inside so she welcomed it instead.</p><p>She had always been the odd one out, too bookish, too bossy, too prim and proper, but when she found out that she was really a witch and actually was different, well, she thought just maybe she wouldn’t be odd anymore. Except nothing changed, she was still too bookish, too bossy, but she wasn’t proper enough or even magical enough.</p><p>Sure, her magical abilities were strong, she wasn’t top in her classes on books alone, but she often forgot she had magic, resorting to doing many things “the muggle way” as Ron deemed it. She hadn’t been able to escape the insecurity she had in primary school and it followed her all the way to Hogwarts, and she fought hard to fight it. But then she was a muggleborn in a pureblood’s world and she had even more to be insecure about.</p><p>She thought, maybe after befriending Harry and Ron that she could escape some of that insecurity, embracing the witch she was, her bookish ways saving them on many occasions. But now she had a new thing to be insecure about.</p><p>Her fellow classmates, the ones she helped Harry teach in the DA, the ones she assisted with the Patronus charm, the ones who laughed at her stupefying Ron, they couldn’t even meet her eyes anymore. She was having a hard time accepting and embracing the werewolf she now was, something that was much harder to accept than it had been to accept her witchcraft. And every time she began to feel better about it, holding her head high because what else was she to do? She was Hermione Granger, she didn’t shrink for anyone, but then they couldn’t look at her, like who she was cannot be stomached.</p><p>She was not Professor Lupin, so her lycanthropy couldn’t be accepted apparently.</p><p>She knew that most of the werewolves in the area were pledged to Voldemort, under the leadership of Greyback, but she wasn’t. Just because she wasn’t Lupin didn’t mean her identity made her evil.</p><p>She wanted to cry or to scream or do anything that would make her feel less invisible, but just the thought of becoming something worse than ignored had her wanting to curl in on herself. Instead, she gazed up at the constellations above her, her eyes searching for a particular one, her lips curving into a smile when she spotted it.</p><p> </p><p>
  <strong>325 Days After</strong>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>Hermione didn’t sleep. Every time she closed her eyes, she saw herself ruthlessly and unforgivingly killing someone, without a second thought. She <em>murdered </em>him with no guilt.</p><p>She filled the roles of judge, jury, and executioner. Dolohov deserved everything he had coming, but who was she to determine that? Who was she to kill him?</p><p>She was not sure where along the line she decided she got to play god, but here she was. Malfoy had told her that morality wouldn’t win the war, but who was she if she abandoned them? Who would she be after the war if she abandons what makes her her?</p><p>She was the same stubborn Gryffindor who fought for every righteous thing she could think of – S.P.E.W including – and created study guides and organized lesson plans. But now she was the Gryffindor who <em>mauled</em>people on the battlefield just because she had a personal vendetta against them.</p><p>Harry would be disappointed in her. He was always mad at the Order’s leadership – primarily Moody – for teaching dark curses, for pushing for more violent fighting. He would be disappointed in her.</p><p>Her personal vendettas weren’t as personal as that they had harmed <em>her</em>per-say. Rather, the fact that he was threatening her friends was enough for her. She always would cross every single line for her friends. Morals be damned when her friends were at stake.</p><p>She was sure Harry would still be disappointed in her, but she jaywalked into immorality for him and Ron and the DA and the Order. And Draco. She knew he defected and should technically be considered a Phoenix like the rest of them, but she couldn’t bring herself to label him as one of them. But he was still on her team and just like everyone else, she would drag herself through hell for him. Potentially even more than the others.</p><p>Speak of the devil and he shall appear…it was like he could <em>hear </em>her thoughts as he walked into the room and sat down next to her on the couch, sporting a smug smirk.</p><p>“Granger,” it came out as a low purr. Fitting for the way he pranced and prowled around the safe houses like a pariah, feet as light as a cat’s. She wouldn’t be surprised if he had nine lives too.</p><p>“Malfoy.”</p><p>“What are you doing out here sulking at – “he checked his watch and pulled a face, “3:24 am?”</p><p>“I guess I could ask you the same thing.”</p><p>“I just got out here, you’ve been out here. Hence, sulking, I just couldn’t sleep.”</p><p>“Oh, shut it, prat.”</p><p>“Is that the best you got, swot?”</p><p>“Git.”</p><p>“Bitch.”</p><p>“Incorrigible ferret.”</p><p>“Too far, Granger, that was fourth year.”</p><p>She let out a loud laugh, her whole body shaking from its force. Relaxing in his presence, Hermione stretched out onto the couch, placing her feet in Draco’s lap. He stiffened before relaxing, his hands held lightly on her legs.</p><p>She noticed too much about Draco. The way he was withdrawn around the whole group of them, but reciprocated her energy, like he needed to be coaxed out of his shell. He was cold and hard and cruel and rough, but he had a way of making her feel warm and soft inside. He treated her like she was a person and like she mattered. But he was more than that. He’s…</p><p>She didn’t know how to describe him without using the word infuriating.</p><p>“So, Malfoy, can’t sleep?”</p><p>“Yes, Granger, I believe I’ve already mentioned that.”</p><p>She made a dismissive noise in the back of her throat and waved her hand.</p><p>“Can I ask you a question?”</p><p>“I’m sure even if I said no, you’d ask me anyways. It’s part of your swottiness.”</p><p>“Oh, shut up.”</p><p>“Then, however would I answer your question?”</p><p>“I will punch you, we both know I’m not opposed to it; I’ve done it before.”</p><p>“Trust me, I remember. Don’t think I could forget you in that moment.”</p><p>“Alright, so, I know you’re not keen on answering personal questions or talking about yourself. But I was curious about something and you’re the only one I could ask. I mean I guess I could’ve asked someone else, but they’d just be speculating or extrapolating based on what we know, but you’ve actually experienced it and I know you’ll probably call me a swot again, but once I get a question, it’s hard to shut it off. So, I’m going to ask and if you’re not comfortable answering, just – just say a safe word or something. Maybe…fireflies? Yeah, obscure enough. Fireflies.”</p><p>“Fireflies?”</p><p>“Oh, um those little flying bugs that glow. Can I ask my question?”</p><p>The sigh he emitted was deep and exasperated and entirely unnecessary. So unnecessary that she rolled her eyes and he sighed again just to annoy her.</p><p>“Sure, Granger, I couldn’t stop you even if I tried.”</p><p>“I was wondering if you had any of the details of getting the Dark Mark,” she pauses to suck in a deep breath to stabilize her courage. “Well, obviously you know the details of getting it – but do you know anything about the spell? I just wanted to study it, but it’s not anywhere in the books I can find on dark magic. Anything you have could help, but I understand if this isn’t a topic you’d like to discuss.”</p><p>She was really looking into ways to get rid of it, but she doesn’t tell him that. Not yet, it was not the right time. She was not sure he wanted to get rid of it or if she was just making estimations and assumptions, but if she could figure out a way, he’d have an option. She knew just having the choice was enough sometimes.</p><p>When he didn’t answer, she glanced to her side to see his reaction. His jaw was tight, and she realized that his right hand clutched over where his mark was on the left forearm – hard. His knuckles were turning white and she realized her mistake. Her heart was hammering inside her chest and she was sure he could hear it, but with the way he was staring unseeingly at the floor, she knew he was not hearing anything.</p><p>She reached over to rest her hand on his forearm, right over where his hand rested and his head snapped to the side to catalogue her. His eyes roamed over her face, like he had forgotten she was there and suddenly had to reacquaint himself with her presence. Hermione wished it didn’t bring a heat to her face to see him look at her so intensely.</p><p>“I’m sorry, Malfoy, I shouldn’t have brought it up.” Her gaze glanced down to his forearm, where he was still clutching desperately, even under her hand, to accentuate her point.</p><p>When he shook his head, she had to stop herself from getting excited, but he was not wrong in calling her a swot. She liked to know things and when she got an idea of an opportunity to learn something new, it was hard to quell her thirst for knowledge.</p><p>“No, no, it’s okay. I just haven’t talked about it. To anyone, really.”</p><p>“Oh.”</p><p>“Okay, what do you want to know?”</p><p>He was still grasping his forearm. She wasn’t sure she could do this, not with that dejected and guilty look on his face. She couldn’t bring up all these bad memories for him, she considers him her friend, she’s supposed to help him, not make things worse for him. She’d never seen him look this much in pain; it was like the mark tormented his very existence.</p><p>“Are you sure?”</p><p>“Granger, no, I’m not sure. I’m never sure about anything when I start talking about myself. But you better start asking your questions before I leave.”</p><p>“Okay. What was it like when you got it?”</p><p>“I- uh, I got it because it wasn’t a choice, you know? My father had just been arrested and the Dark Lord was peeved, my father had failed him. It fell to me to make up for his mistakes. The mark wasn’t a choice, not really. He phrased it like it was an honor, but one look at my mother and I knew if I had said no, she’d be dead. So, I did it. It was pure, unadultered pain. His magic bled into me and festered under my skin, like it was trapped and begging to be released. It was worse than a <em>crucio </em>because I could feel him inside me, tainting me.”</p><p>He stopped to gulp down a large sip of water, a hand trailing paths through his hair.</p><p>“Killing Dumbledore was a fool’s errand. I was 16 and I was supposed to take down the most powerful wizard of our generation? No, he thought I’d fail, and he could take down two birds with one stone. Punish my father and kill me as I tried to prove my loyalty. He didn’t have my loyalty though, not really. He threatened to kill my mother if I didn’t go through with it, Granger.”</p><p>He was suddenly staring at her, pleading with her to understand. His eyes were wide and frantic, and he looked so much like a scared kid in that moment, she could do nothing but understand. He was a child tasked to do the impossible, imprisoned to his role in the war. How could she not understand that? She was imprisoned to her role too.</p><p>She was a muggle-born witch caught in the middle of a war; she had no choice but to choose the side that didn’t want to kill her. Harry was the chosen one, he surely had no choice but to fight for the good, the prophecy said as much. Besides, his parents died for him, he was forced to fill a role he didn’t even know he had. They were drafted into this war the second they were born.</p><p>“I know,” was all she can say. She couldn’t make him feel better, not really, and it was all she can think to say.</p><p>“This bloody mark is a physical reminder of my failures. I couldn’t even kill Dumbledore to save my mother. I don’t even know if she’s still alive, I wouldn’t be surprised if he killed her when I defected. But this mark, this bloody mark, it crawls under my skin, it’s like poison pumping through my blood. I can feel his magic, like it’s a demon, aching to get out, it twists and twirls and claws at me. It burns as if it thinks it can escape if it burns a hole in me. If I don’t figure out a way to get it off of me, I think I’ll cut my arm off. I would do everything, short of killing myself, to get rid of this incessant reminder of how awful of a person I am.”</p><p>This whole conversation was a step inside Malfoy’s vulnerability, and she couldn’t breathe. He was trusting her enough to talk to her about something so personal and achingly painful. She could feel his guilt and despair weighing on her like a brick pressing into her chest.</p><p>“Malfoy, it’s a scar, I don’t think you’ll ever be able to rid yourself of it, just like mine.”</p><p>“Right, it is a scar. But not in the same way as your scars.”</p><p>“Yes, it is, it shows how you survived.”</p><p>“No, it shows how much of a coward I am. Your scars, every single one of them, show your bravery. The one etched into your arm by my aunt? That night proved to me exactly how strong and brave you were. I always thought you to be brilliant, we all knew it, brightest witch of her age, right? Well, it should be bravest witch of all time. The scars of your lycanthropy? Even braver, even stronger. You were attacked and survived, and you don’t hang your head. I don’t even know what the scar on your chest is from, but I know it was brave. This,” he stops to yank his sleeve up, holding his arm up as if it was a painting for her to analyze, “this does nothing but show how weak I am, what I did to survive was stay a coward, all in the sake of self-preservation. Your scars show courage and strength and how you fought for what was right, mine show that I’m not worthy to even be in your presence. Don’t compare the two ever again.”</p><p>He yanked his sleeve down once more, his fingers flinching away from the skin, as if it burnt him just to touch it.</p><p>“Draco- “</p><p>She didn’t even register that she had called him by his first name. His eyes widened slightly, but the anger in them forced her to look away, even if the anger was at himself and not her, they burnt as they traced across her skin, the hair standing on end at its heated caress.</p><p>“Don’t. This was a bad idea. I shouldn’t have said anything.”</p><p>He was stalking out of the room before she could even present a counter argument. Well, that went well.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. [three]</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>This chapter doesn't span that many days, but content is the same length, so prepare for some hefty days. We're getting close to the end too!</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <strong>326 Days After</strong>
</p><p> </p><p>Hermione spent the entire night after Draco stormed off researching the dark mark. It was hard work in that little safe house where there wasn't much of a library, but she did her best. It didn't help that there wasn't much material on the mark in general, so she ended up spending the entire day researching ways to break down the spell. </p><p>She didn't have high hope of it working, but she had to try. She just needed to find a marked Death Eater to test her new potion on. And somehow find the materials to make the potion in first place, they didn't have unlimited quantity of ingredients in the Order; none could be spared for personal experiments. </p><p>She needed sleep, she'd been up for 52 hours straight now - she hadn't slept much the night before and then she was up talking with Draco and now it's the next night and she should be asleep. She just had to get her hands on the variables for this trial and then just maybe she'd be able to fix Draco's plight. </p><p> </p><p>
  <strong>327 Days After</strong>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>“Damn.” She’d recruited Neville as her best friend to attempt to stifle the deep hole in her chest that screamed when she slept and ached when she woke. He didn’t mind, he always loved being around her, even when she was bookish and studious. She had always encouraged him in the DA, and he could fill whatever role she needed, he loved her like a sister and he always wanted to make sure she knew that.</p><p>“Damn, what?” It was a new voice, and it interrupted the body wracking laughter that was escaping the two Gryffindors. Hermione stiffened like an iron board, but Neville simply slid an easy smile at the newcomer.</p><p>“Oh, Mione was just telling me about the time she and Millicent Bulstrode got into a fight in class. She considered learning how to box after just so she could fight without her wand.”</p><p>Draco’s eyes traced over her figure easily and she fought down the butterflies that filled her chest with racket. A hum of amusement? Intrigue? Boredom? - she wasn’t not sure - rumbled in the back of his throat and she was seized by the sudden desire to make him laugh, if only to see his eyes crinkled and his lips curved in happiness once more.</p><p>They fought the other day, and she was unsure if she should tread lightly or not. But then again, that was just not who she was and if this night ended explosive too, then so be it.</p><p>“It’s much more satisfying doing it the Muggle way, Malfoy got a taste of it third year just ask him.” To her satisfaction, a dry laugh escaped him.</p><p>“Oh, third year me deserved that punch for all it was worth. But if we’re being honest, it really just made you hotter.”</p><p>Hermione choked on the air and Neville broke out into a mirthful laugh at her misfortune. Draco, however, was just watching her with a wide smirk painted onto his skin. Not treading lightly, apparently.</p><p>“Really? I would’ve thought the realization that I was hot wouldn’t have come until the Yule Ball when I finally tamed the bird’s nest.” She gestured to her hair and watched as his eyes follow her movements.</p><p>“Yes, well, the Yule Ball certainly helped your coming out as a girl.”</p><p>He laughed at the growl that she let out and continued to laugh when she slapped his arm like he was her friend who had joked about this before. She kept her hand resting against his arm for a moment too long and realized her fault with a cough. His eyes tracked the movement as her hand retreated to her lap. Neville cleared his throat and they both snapped their attention to him, each ignoring whatever moment they just had.</p><p>Neville choked out a small laugh before addressing them. “’Mione has always been a girl, some people just couldn’t see it through the books.” Hermione gave him a thankful smile and Malfoy snorted.</p><p>“Sure, she’s always been a girl, I could never deny that. The Yule Ball was just the only time no one at Hogwarts could dispute that fact anymore.”</p><p>“Wow, thanks, Malfoy, I appreciate the vote of confidence.”</p><p>“No, no, Granger, you’re not hearing me. I never could deny that you were a girl, I thought you were attractive long before the Ball, but some people lagged behind a little bit.”</p><p>Neville wasn’t sitting on the couch next to them anymore, but neither one of them noticed that he had gotten up and left them to their discussion. They also didn’t notice that they were sitting with maybe inches between them, maybe. Or maybe they did, and they were just ignoring it so they could revel in the body heat that they felt.</p><p>“What do you mean? You never thought I was attractive. You’re the one who made fun of me for my bushy hair and buck teeth.”</p><p>She was sure she was imagining his breath on her face, why was he that close to her?</p><p>“Granger, don’t be daft.”</p><p>“Excuse me?”</p><p>“I’ve always thought you were attractive. That’s why my father knew so much about you before second year. It’s why I gave you that page about the basilisks, its why I bullied you. I forced myself to hate you so I could avoid liking you.”</p><p>“That was you? The basilisk page?”</p><p>He nodded at her, his hand in the space between them on the couch, his pinky was touching her thigh and she had to force herself not to move.</p><p>“My father backhanded me so hard the summer before second year when I told him I wished you were a pureblood. I’m sure there’s a scar from his ring on my cheek, I have too many of them to count now though.”</p><p>Her mouth hung open and it was simply Gryffindor bravery for her still being able to look him in the eyes. She was actively fighting the urge to look anywhere <em>but </em>him. His eyes were piercing her, the grey in his eyes shining like molten silver and she was gulping from the intensity spinning like yarn within them.</p><p>“Yo-you told him you wished I was a pureblood?”</p><p>His ring finger was touching her thigh now too.</p><p>“Why?”</p><p>“Granger, we both know you’re not daft. Think, use that big brain of yours.”</p><p>“Did you like me? That early on at Hogwarts?”</p><p>“Don’t fish, obviously I did, there’s no other reason I would’ve wished for you to be suitable for marriage.”</p><p>“Malfoy.”</p><p>“Don’t, I know you didn’t like me, how could you when I was doing everything to make you hate me? Hell, I’m the reason you even knew what the word mudblood meant.”</p><p>His hand was on her thigh now, her fingers resting next to his, their pinkies touching, and she was struggling to not move closer to him.</p><p>“Draco- “</p><p>“No, Granger, listen, I know that I bullied you and that I was a right prat to you and that your scar on your arm is because of me and I just <em>stood there</em>and did nothing while you screamed. Merlin knows that I wished I could burn for just standing there while you stared at me. Did you know you were staring at me?”</p><p>“Draco- “</p><p>“Fuck, of course you did, why were you staring at me? I always thought it was to urge me to do something, anything to help you, but who knows. What I do know is that I don’t deserve anything from you, even friendship, because I have done nothing, but”</p><p>She didn’t know what she was doing, one minute she was hyper-focused on the way their fingers are touching and the next she was kissing him. She had never had a kiss that felt like this before, the heat in her body was increasing exponentially and she was struggling to keep up. He let out a gasp of surprise before his hands found her thighs and pulled her into his lap. Her hands are tangled in his hair and she was entirely lost in him. She needed to breathe, but instead of air, she was drinking him in like he could fill her lungs and her bloodstream and her heart.</p><p>She felt like she was falling and falling and falling and the only way to catch herself was to pour everything she had into the kiss. She was pushing and pulling, and he pushed and pulled right back.</p><p>One of her hands was hooked into the soft tresses of hair at the base of his neck and the other was <em>everywhere</em>. It was tracing along his cheek and curves itself along his jaw and painted down his neck. It caressed his shoulder and danced across his arm until it was right above his mark and she wrapped her hand around his forearm and held on tight.</p><p>She felt him smirk against her lips when she pressed a moan resembling his name into the kiss.</p><p>He pulled back first, but his lips didn’t leave her, instead tracing their way across her jawline and down her neck. She felt him kissing her scars and she gasped and tried to pull herself away from his lips. She could feel tar replacing the blood in her veins and unshed tears start to sting the back of her throat.</p><p>He must’ve felt her tense up and he pulled back and his eyes met hers. His hands were still around her waist, holding her close to him. “What’s wrong?”</p><p>She shook her head, <em>nothingnothingnothing</em>“I’m fine.”</p><p>“No, you’re not. What is it?” Her eyes started feeling distinctly watery and her hand went on its own accord and traced her cheek where her skin was mottled. Realization softened his gaze, his eyes following her hand along her scars.</p><p>“Hey, I know I’ve done my fair share of tearing you down when I was young. But these scars, these scars, Granger, they do not make you ugly. I don’t think anything could make you ugly, even your scars and your lycanthropy. And I will do everything to rectify the damage I did to your confidence as a kid.”</p><p>He pressed a kiss to the spot below her ear and his voice came out as a low purr against her skin, “By the way, I like the way my name sounds on your lips.”</p><p>She kissed him again.</p><p> </p><p>
  <strong>329 Days After</strong>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>Panting heavily, Hermione drew her wand out as she steeled herself for what may reside inside the building. Dark magic seeped from its shingles, darkness swirling out from its sideboards, power choking her as she stepped close to the door.</p><p>This was the first mission she’d been on since she was cleared for battle after her stay in the hospital ward. The Order didn’t have many people and she did heal quickly. Lupin told her that there was not much that she wouldn’t heal from, especially as she became an older and stronger wolf. The information was shortly followed by a warning to not be stupid, plenty of dark curses could still kill her – it just might take longer to do so.</p><p>Now, she was leading a strategical attack against a laboratory. One of their new branches of research, where they experiment with prisoners – resistance members and muggles alike – to develop new curses, new potions, new torture methods.</p><p>Her team was her typical team with a couple of in training Phoenixes, newbies. They liked to call them fledglings. They weren’t promoted to true members until they’ve seen blood they themselves spilled.</p><p>These particular fledglings inspired sympathy. They seemed almost younger than Hermione and her team, which shouldn’t have been possible considering how none of her team ever graduated from Hogwarts. But it made sense, the Order needed people, they were likely recruiting kids as soon as they were of legal age, maybe even before.</p><p>There were two of them with her team. One was a small boy with shaggy brown hair that was in a constant state of disarray, forever stuck in his eyes. The other was a lanky girl with hair as dark as the night, braided severely to keep it out of the way. Hermione thought the tight style likely gave her a headache with the way she kept scratching at her temples. She’d get used to it, Hermione had to wear her hair like that too, if she didn’t want to crop it close to her head.</p><p>She felt bad for them, for having to be in this war. She didn’t know if they were muggleborn or not, but they had a determination set in their jaw and a fire alight in their eyes that Hermione didn’t worry about the reason they were there. They were ready to fight and that was all she needed to care about; not the way the boy’s hands twitched in its grasp on his wand before tightening or that the girl had clenched her fists so tight, she had crescents of blood from her nails.</p><p>She hadn’t learned their names before the mission. She saw them on the roster and used them in her planning of strategy, but they hadn’t stuck with her. She used to include studying names when planning for a mission, but as the war progressed and she had lost more than half of the random Order members that made their way into her roster rotation, she stopped trying to know their names. There was that saying about not to name something unless you wanted to get attached and Hermione knew better.</p><p>“Alright, get in formation.” She waited a breath while the fledglings shuffled around to stay true to their plans, the other members of her team were already standing ready. They knew each other, they fought with each other so much that they had become stilled partners, dancing around each other without even brushing against the other’s toes. Their movements were rhythmic and graceful, hundreds of battles had forced them to train and duel until they knew each other’s fighting styles and next hex before they knew their own.</p><p>It was tightknit and personal, but also exactly what was needed when fighting. But it also meant that an injury or death would jolt the team more than there was time for. They cared about each other, that’s what made fighting alongside one another so easy, but oh, so hard.</p><p>“<em>Alohomora,</em>” she whispered, her wand pointed at the door handle. The very second she heard it click unlocked, she kicked it open, rushing in, her dueling partner following shortly behind before the rest of her team fell inside.</p><p>Draco pressed close to her side, the two of them advancing further into the room. They hadn’t done more than snog the other night, but it seemed as though they moved even more gracefully around each other, like they could predict the other’s next breath. It was almost like they were dancing a waltz with each other and successfully not stepping on the other’s toes.</p><p>Inside was your typical laboratory, tables and beakers and Bunsen burners strewn about, with cold bright light straining their eyes. What wasn’t typical was the blood that leaked from the table’s surfaces before staining the concrete below in puddled messes. Or the fact that it was <em>completely</em>empty.</p><p>There were no prisoners, no animals, no researchers, and no guards. Their intelligence was faulty. Or worse, there was a leak in the Order.</p><p>Hermione snapped her gaze to meet Draco’s eyes and watched as he continued to catalogue their surroundings, coming to the same conclusion she had. Grey met brown and in that moment they both knew. It was a trap.</p><p>She turned to alert her team when she noticed the fog that was beginning to seep into the air like a slow burning virus. They need to get out. Their surroundings began to crackle with energy, and she could smell the dark magic – sweet at first but it burned her nostrils as she inhaled.</p><p>“We need to get out! Hurry up!” She was shouting, but her team members weren’t moving, as if they didn’t hear her. “Now!”</p><p>They weren’t looking at her as she yelled, instead entranced by the empty air. There was palpable dark magic in the air, glimmering as she stared, and she felt inexplicably drawn to it. Shaking her head, she was able to snap her attention away from it with considerable effort, which must have been why her team wasn’t hearing her.</p><p>Gulping and beginning to hold her breath in an attempt to avoid the pull of the dark spell, she approached her battle partner first. They worked well together, she needed him if she was going to figure out how to get her team out.</p><p>Standing in front of Draco, she watched as his eyes looked straight through her, entranced by the spell. “Draco,” she said as she reached up to rest her hand on his cheek.</p><p>The second her fingers touched skin, his eyes snapped to meet hers and her breath caught in her throat. His hand came up to ensnare hers, but he didn’t pull it from his face.</p><p>“Granger, what’s going on?”</p><p>“It’s a trap, there’s some sort of dark spell entrancing the occupants of the room.”</p><p>“We need to get them out of here.”</p><p>She nodded in reply, “We need to get as much intelligence from here as possible while we’re at it.”</p><p>“You start portkeying them out, I’ll gather as much evidence as I can.”</p><p>Hermione sped into action, attempting to snap her team members out of it, but none of them come to like Draco did. By the time she got everyone out, they had been in the room for at least 20 minutes. The enchantment spell was still strong, but there had to be some kind of alerting spell here too if it was going to work as a trap.</p><p>“Draco, we got to go.”</p><p>“Ye- “he started to respond to her, but before he could finish, the door slammed open as Death Eaters start to pile in, Rabastan Lestrange heading the effort, Lucius Malfoy following right behind him.</p><p>“Well, well, well, what do we have here? Look at that, it’s your blood-traitor coward of a son,” Rabastan rasped out, his voice low and dry as if he was choking for blood.</p><p>Lucius didn’t look good, which is saying something considering the pureblood aristocratic air he always prided himself on. His eyes were swollen and the purple stains under them were so dark they looked black. His clothes are rumbled and wrinkled, was he sleeping in his suits? His hair hung in greasy limps around his face.</p><p>“He’s no son of mine.”</p><p>Hermione turned to look at Draco and notices the flicker of pain flash in his eyes before they hardened to steel once more. His face was impassively cool, was he performing occlumency? There was no way he was this controlled and calm, all things considered. She’d have to ask him later, well, if they survived this.</p><p>Praying it was not noticed, she grasped his hand behind his back, squeezing it hard. His face didn’t change, but he squeezed back before pulling out his wand and aiming it directly at his father’s heart. Hermione follows his lead and aims hers directly at Rabastan.</p><p>“Oi, boys, look at the brave little mudblood. It’s Potter’s mudblood whore, how much do you think the Dark Lord would give us for her head on a pike? Of course, we’d have to bring her alive, he might want to have his fun with her first.”</p><p>The laugh that echoed throughout the gathering of Death Eaters caused her stomach to tighten. She didn’t miss the way Draco angled himself in front of her so he was protecting her like a shield, but not blocking her entirely so she could still fight. Their fighting partnership was a second nature to them both, it seemed.</p><p>“Isn’t that just adorable? A blood traitor and a filthy mudblood. Bet you’re absolutely dripping with pride, Lucius.”</p><p>Hermione could feel the rage begin to boil within her veins, burning hot as it pumped around her heart.</p><p>“It’s a good thing the Dark Lord doesn’t need Draco alive as he serves him no purpose. Gives me time to have my own fun. He won’t be leaving alive, that’s a guarantee.”</p><p>She wouldn’t admit it, but that set her off. Forcing a partial transformation again - claws and sharp teeth were her new friends. She pushed Draco behind her and lunged towards the closest Death Eater. At her sudden movement, the men around them started shooting curses towards her and Draco.</p><p>She landed on a man she didn’t know the name of her claws digging deep into his chest. She could hear shouts of spells behind her, as she leapt from man to man, mauling them.</p><p>She ducked under a spell cast her way and sent a binding spell at Rabastan and then summoning his wand. She tried to send one towards Lucius as well, but he twisted and disapparated before she had the chance. There were 6 dead Death Eater bodies bleeding onto the laboratory floor, claw marks littering their chests.</p><p>She couldn’t meet Draco’s eyes.</p><p>“Oh, when I get out of these ropes, you’ll regret this, mudblood.”</p><p>“Well, it sure is a good thing that you won’t be getting out of the ropes anytime soon. <em>Silencio</em>.”</p><p>“Granger, what are you doing?” It was whispered to her, as she brushed past Draco. He still had his wand pointed at the bound man and she couldn’t blame him as his eyes darted around at the bodies decorating the floor, at the blood that painted her fingers.</p><p>“I’ve been studying the Dark Mark after our talk. I want to try to remove Rabastan’s. This lab has everything I may need to do so.”</p><p>She continued to bustle around the room, gathering potion ingredients. She pulled her wand out and reset the wards around the laboratory to avoid an interruption of more Death Eaters.</p><p>“What? Are you insane?”</p><p>“Maybe, you have called me that before. But that’s not the point.”</p><p>“Not the point? Then, pray tell, what is the point?”</p><p>“We talked about the Mark and I want to get it off of you. But I am not experimenting on you, so here’s a nice specimen for trial and error.”</p><p>“Granger, you can’t be experimenting at all! If he didn’t get away, would you have been working on my father next?”</p><p>She began on the potion she read about. It was a potion that healers used to eradicate small traces of dark magic in wounds. Granted, it was only for small traces, so she didn’t have a lot of hope. The <em>morsmorde </em>spell of their mark was likely too much magic for it to work.</p><p>“Granger, answer me.”</p><p>“If you wanted me to use your father, I don’t see why not, but I wasn’t originally planning on that. Now do you want to gawk at me or help me cut these flobberworms so we can get back faster?”</p><p>“I’ll say it again: are you insane? We need to get out of here.”</p><p>“I already reset the wards. But go ahead, head back, I got this.”</p><p>“I’m not leaving you.”</p><p>He was standing so close to her that she could feel his chest brush against her shoulder as she continued cutting. She could smell him. Oakmoss – likely from that expensive cologne he always used – mint, and apple. He was so close that she could smell him over the smell of the worms.</p><p>“Alright, but can you please help me instead of hovering? The faster we’re done, the better.”</p><p>He slid in and took the knife from her hand and continued the slicing of ingredients. She began grinding pewter powder while he worked. By the time their potion was finally done, it was glimmering red.</p><p>“Alright, Draco, can you roll up his sleeve and hold his arm still for me?”</p><p>He passed her a nod and did exactly that. Rabastan jerked and strained to free himself, his body vibrating with silent screams as she gathered a layer of the potion in her hand and spreads it to cover the entirety of the skull and snake.</p><p>She watched as it begins to glow and gaped as the mark starts moving around until she realized that Rabastan is seizing, foam seeping from his mouth.</p><p>“Granger, what’s happening?”</p><p>“I don’t – I don’t know.”</p><p>The potion had been absorbed by his skin, but the mark glowed red and irritated, as if it was rejecting treatment. She turned him onto his side to prevent him from choking and watched as the mark continue to glow dark against his pale skin. The potion didn’t do anything.</p><p>“Fuck.”</p><p>“Yep.”</p><p>“We could always cut off his arm.”</p><p>“Shut up, Malfoy.”</p><p>“As you wish, Granger.”</p><p> </p><p>
  <strong>334 Days After</strong>
</p><p> </p><p>“Lupin, does being a werewolf make a person less inhibited? Or, perhaps, exist in a constant state of extremes?”</p><p>She was currently helping Lupin strategize for their next raid. She should have been focusing on that, on the mission ahead, where to put her toy soldiers. Instead, she was thinking about the way she’d changed. She wasn’t the same person she used to be.</p><p>Sure, she had always been willing to do anything for those she cared for, but was there even a line that she wouldn’t cross anymore? She doesn’t recognize who she was now.</p><p>“Well, in a sense, yes. Lycanthropy has a way of intensifying your emotions, in addition to making it easier to follow impulses. So, in a way, yes, less inhibited. It makes a person more determined and can make them obsessive, but it tends to just exaggerate the traits that are already in the human. What do you mean ‘exist in a constant state of extremes’? Are you finding yourself doing things you shouldn’t be?”</p><p>An image of her mauling unnamed Death Eaters, experimenting on Rabastan, maiming him as she tries to remove his mark, shooting a killing curse at his still body when nothing had worked. All for Draco. Yeah, you could say she’d been doing things she shouldn’t have been.</p><p>“I guess, it’s easier to exist in the morally grey areas. I can justify doing things I would’ve judged before just by telling myself it’s all for my friends, for my team.”</p><p>To his credit, Lupin didn’t seem disappointed in her. He seemed to be contemplating something, his eyes staring downward in deep thought.</p><p>“Is this morally grey area something I should be concerned about? I consider you to be like a daughter to me, Hermione, I feel responsible for you. But I am also technically obliged to report you to Moody if you’ve been doing unethical things in the name of the Order.”</p><p>“No, no, it’s not.” <em>Yes, it is.</em></p><p>“Okay, then continue.” He made a gesture with his hand to accompany his words.</p><p>“I just…it’s easier to get angry, you know? It’s easier to attack, to use fatal spells instead of <em>stupefies</em>and it’s easier to avenge if it seems as though there’s something to avenge.”</p><p>She could barely look him in the eyes, there was guilt weighing down on her from all sides, crushing her into a tiny little square from the pressure. <em>Liar.</em>Everything she’d been doing could have her suspended from the Order. They needed people, they surely didn’t have enough fighters – what, with all the injuries that kept cutting their army in half – but a rogue soldier? Worse than not enough soldiers.</p><p>“That’s normal. The wolf and the human aren’t two separate entities, as the wolf wants what it’s human wants. It draws from your thoughts, your emotions, your feelings, your actions, you’re the blueprint for what your wolf wants. But the wolf tends to have less of a moral compass, it’s willing to do more violent, more cruel things in a sort of ends justify the means kind of way. So, if you’ve been noticing yourself doing harsher things, that could be influence from your wolf, you both want something and it’s okay with you doing it in a morally ambiguous way.”</p><p>“But what if it doesn’t feel like my wolf is driving me to act like this? What if it’s just that the war is changing me? Or maybe it’s not even changing me, I’ve always been willing to do anything for my friends, but now with the war, <em>anything</em>is a lot different than it would’ve been at Hogwarts. Maybe I just didn’t know how far I was willing to go.”</p><p>“Hermione, even if it isn’t your wolf’s influence, you aren’t wrong that it intensifies things. But, even without that, your willingness to cross lines for your friends has been a trait you’ve always had. I noticed it back in third year when I first met you and every consecutive year I’ve known you.”</p><p>“But that’s not good! How can I fight for the good side if I’m not a good person? I can barely look at myself in the mirror!”</p><p>“I’d have to disagree. Your devotion and loyalty to your friends is something that I admire, I’d never consider it a bad thing. Maybe it leads you astray in terms of morality and that’s not something I should encourage. However, I’m sure you’ve heard the phrase, “history is written by the winners”?”</p><p>She could only supply a nod in reply, her throat was choked up with dry tears and she had the urge to throw up.</p><p>“Yes, well, war only exists in shades of grey. Sure, we’re the good guys, but that doesn’t mean our side and our people exist only in pure light. We’re not evil, but in order to win, we have to be willing to sacrifice and cross certain lines we wouldn’t in normal, day-to-day life. I never would’ve thought I’d kill people on a battlefield, but I’ve been doing it since I graduated and fought in the First Wizarding War. Murder, obviously immoral. But it’s war. The moral ones may not be the ones who win. So, we embrace the grey and we fight to win and we deal with the guilt we feel every night over the horrible things we’ve done.”</p><p>He coughed and blinked rapidly before continuing.</p><p>“Now, I’m not suggesting you go commit war crimes, that’s not it at all. But, Hermione, morally grey is better than losing. Losing means they won and they are comfortable existing in the morally grey and for many of them, pure evil. That’s the difference. You’re uncomfortable crossing into moral ambiguity, you feel guilt for the horrendous things you’ve done in the face of war, but they don’t. They don’t regret it, some of them thrive off of it. We have to win, losing isn’t an option, Hermione. I am here for you and you can talk to me, we can share our despair and our guilt, but you are not a bad person for fighting in this war.”</p><p>A pit dropped in her stomach, sending her on the rollercoaster of mixed emotions that was keeping secrets. She wanted nothing more than to spill everything to Lupin that moment, but she was stuck grasping on thread of possibilities. If she told Lupin, she’d get in trouble in some way or another, meaning she’d have to stop her research. Stopping her research means she couldn’t help Draco. That just wouldn’t do.</p><p>“Thank you, Remus. For what it’s worth, you’re like father to me too.”</p><p>The words were true, but what hurt was the shine that gathered in his eyes from unshed tears and the comforting hug that she couldn’t relax in. She was getting comfortable living in the grey.</p><p> </p><p>
  <strong>335 Days After</strong>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>“Draco.”</p><p>“Granger.”</p><p>“So…”</p><p>He was looking at her with obvious mirth as he leaned against the kitchen counter.</p><p>“Yes?”</p><p>“Would you like tea?”</p><p>Whatever he was expecting her to ask, it obviously wasn’t that. His eyes blow wide and it took him longer than necessary to answer her.</p><p>“Sure, thanks.”</p><p>She just nodded as she spun back to the kettle on the stove. She hadn’t been able to hold a conversation with him ever since she tried to experiment with getting the mark off. It didn’t seem like he was mad at her, per se, but the guilt she felt ate within her. It was like a parasite, snacking on the inside of her stomach, eating until it ultimately reached her heart.</p><p>“Granger,” his voice was closer and when she twisted around, she found him right in front of her, maybe 2 inches of space between them. She pressed herself further into the counter behind her. “We have to talk about what happened.”</p><p>“Hmm? Oh, um, I guess. What do you have to say?”</p><p>His hands were boxing her in now, one resting on the counter immediately next to her hip and his thumb brushing against her when she inhaled. Stifling a shiver at the warmth that leached through her trousers, she lifted her chin so she could stare directly in his eyes.</p><p>“What do I have to say? I guess all I really have to say is that you need to stop dragging me on your suicide missions.”</p><p>“Drag you? I told you to leave, you’re the one that wouldn’t leave me.”</p><p>“What kind of man would I be if I left you behind? That’s almost what’s expected of me. I can see it now: Slytherin Prince leaves Golden Girl in Evil Scientist’s Lab with Two Well Known Death Eaters. Just because you’ve got a hero complex doesn’t mean you have to sacrifice yourself to save everyone else. Yes, I want the mark gone, but not at the cost of you, understand?”</p><p>When she didn’t respond, one of his hands ventured forward and cupped around her jaw, tilting her head back to look at her.</p><p>“I said, do you understand?”</p><p>“Yes, but that doesn’t mean I’ll change. It’s who I am. I love strongly and I can’t just stop. If I see someone hurting, I can’t just ignore it.”</p><p>“Like I said, bloody Gryffindors. The mark is <em>not</em>actively hurting me. When this war is over, if it doesn’t disappear with the Dark Lord’s death, then we can look into trying to get it off. If we win, at least. You are not to be risking yourself for some experiment for getting my mark off. Don’t pull a stunt like that again, you hear me?”</p><p>When she nodded, he released his hold on her jaw and let his hand slide over to cup her cheek. “Speaking of hearing, did you just say you love me?”</p><p>Her eyes widened and she couldn’t help but splutter. “I- no! I- I did not, you must’ve heard me wr-wrong.”</p><p>His eyes were sparkling with amusement and she could feel the blush that painted her cheeks. His hand patted her cheek before returning to his side as he leaned slightly away, allowing her space to breathe once more.</p><p>“Don’t fret, Granger, I know how you lions are.”</p><p>“Oh, like how I know how you snakes are,” her voice was weak in retort as she couldn’t focus on anything besides how close he is and how the sun glints on his hair and how the muscles in his forearms are flexed as he holds his weight up.</p><p>“Hm, and how might that be?”</p><p>His hand had slipped from her cheek and brushed down the expanse of her neck before resting snugly around her neck. His grip wasn’t tight, he was not squeezing at all, but a shiver wracked her body at the feel of his fingers resting against the delicate skin there.</p><p>“You know, cunning- “Her sentence ended on a gasp as his other hand – which was resting near her hip – brushed the skin at the hem of her shirt before settling its grasp there.</p><p>“Continue.”</p><p>She doesn’t know who leaned forward, but the space between their faces had diminished greatly. His eyes, normally resembling molten mercury, were now so dark she had to suppress a gasp. She was close enough that she could smell his breath as he exhales. Cool mint and she shivered again.</p><p>“Ambitious- “She managed to suppress the moan that attempted its escape as his hand traveled further under her shirt, fingers as light as a brush as they traced up her body and then back down, tickling her skin as they danced across it.</p><p>He leaned closer and she was almost disappointed when his mouth met her ear and not her lips. His breath warmed her neck as he exhaled once again.</p><p>“Are you quoting <em>Hogwarts, A History</em>, or have you experienced these from a Slytherin?”</p><p>His voice was low and soft as it reached her eardrum and she would’ve rubbed her legs together if it weren’t for his thigh in between them.</p><p>“You’re demonstrating these traits pre-pretty adequately at the moment, Draco.” Her voice came out little louder than a whisper and she cursed herself for the way he affected her.</p><p>“Is that right, Granger?” His lips brushed against the skin directly under her ear and her breath hitched somewhere under her diaphragm. “What would you say,” The hand under her shirt moved to rest on her sternum, his thumb brushing the bottom of her breast considering she had forgone a bra, “I’m ambitious for?”</p><p>“You kissed me last week and now here we are. That seems to me like you’re ambitious for some- “His hand moved to cup a breast and when his finger swiped across her taut nipple, she let out a loud gasp. “-thing.”</p><p>She pressed down against his thigh as a pull behind her navel tugs, causing him to push it higher into her.</p><p>His hands left the skin of her torso and gripped the back of her thighs, “Jump,” he whispered against her ear and when she did, her legs wrapped around his hips as he placed her on top of thecounter.</p><p>As her head fell back against the cupboard behind her, she realized Draco was good at this. Her jealousy of the blonde woman a while back was well founded. She came with his tongue pressed against her and nearly again when he stood back up, his lips slick, a smile stretched nearly to his ears.</p><p>“You taste like honey,” he pressed his forehead to hers. “Want to see?” He said before he kissed her, her taste all over his tongue.</p><p> </p><p>
  <strong>336 Days After</strong>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>When Hermione woke up the next morning, the first thing she realized when she opened her eyes was that this was not her room. The window was on a different wall and the chipped paint on the walls was a different shade of blue. She hadn’t meant to fall asleep in Draco’s room.</p><p>She didn’t regret anything that happened, certainly not her orgasms or his and certainly not the way he held her afterwards. Basking in the afterglow she had seen Lavender sporting a while back, the afterglow she never thought she would get to have. He shut down any insecurities she had last night quickly with the way he kissed her body, like he was worshipping a goddess, reverent and adoring touches and kisses clothed her naked skin.</p><p>She definitely didn’t regret it, but she hadn’t meant to fall asleep here. It was war, after all, and she had seen – both firsthand and secondhand – how that tore relationships apart. She knew she wasn’t made for casual sex, but she also didn’t want to enter a relationship just for it to blow up in her face.</p><p>The second thing she noticed was the way his arm was wrapped tightly around her, not only keeping her body flush with his, but interlaced with her own hand. Their legs were entangled with each other and the contours of their bodies were so tight that she felt each breath he took against her back as his chest rose and fell.</p><p>Slowly, so she didn’t wake him, she dropped his hand and pulled her legs free one at a time before quietly spinning over. Seeing him in the early morning, as light flickered in from the window and reflected across the planes of his face was a sight that Hermione had never expected to see in her life and it was enough to take her breath away.</p><p>His hair was mused, both from sleep and her pulling at it, and his lips were upturned slightly, like he was dreaming of something pleasant. He looked so <em>young</em>. He looked how he should have at this age, if he hadn’t been born into this life, if he hadn’t been drafted into the war as soon as he was born into the family he was.</p><p>One of her hands reached up to brush some flyaway strands from his forehead and as she did, one of his arms snaked around her and pulled her close as his eyes flickered open. His eyes shone like the moon, only they didn’t need the night’s cover to maintain brightness; no, they were strong enough on their own. His eyes wandered around her face as he continued to wake up and she almost wondered if he was mad she was still in his bed.</p><p>“I can hear you thinking, y’know,” his voice was deep and raspy from sleep and she felt her heart clench at the sound. Her cheeks burned as pink spread across her face. “Sickle for your thoughts?”</p><p>He was so close that each breath jostled the baby hairs that rested against her cheek. He hadn’t moved, he continued to lay there with his arms around her and his legs have once again intertwined with hers and while his features may have been considered pointy when he was a child, he has certainly grown into the aristocratic cheekbones and jawline. Even his nose screamed Greek god. She had never seen something so beautiful, it was a shame she didn’t have a photographic memory.</p><p>In her hesitation to respond, one of his hands began tracing along her cheek.</p><p>“Just admiring the aristocracy.”</p><p>His eyebrows shot up at that and he chuckled slightly, “Of course, light thoughts for the early morning, no doubt. What about the aristocracy?”</p><p>“Oh, just the sharp features in their architecture.”</p><p>“Hm, didn’t peg you for an architectural aficionado.”</p><p>“I wouldn’t go that far, just acknowledging credit where it is due.”</p><p>At that, she slipped out of his embrace and pulled the sheet with her as she stood up. He reached out and made grabbing gestures at her, his lips twisting into a pout.</p><p>“Come back, where are you going?”</p><p>“I need to shower, the day won’t wait for us, y’know.”</p><p>“Were you going to invite me or just taunt me with the knowledge of you naked only mere feet away from me?”</p><p>Normally Hermione would’ve blush, maybe pushed her hair behind her ear, but instead a wicked grin slid across her face, hinting at the mischievous and degenerate things she wanted to do with him.</p><p>“I’m naked mere feet away from you now, what’s holding you back at the moment?”</p><p>She laughed and ran towards the bathroom as he bolted from the bed, his arm wrapping around her stomach before hauling her over his shoulder and carrying her into the bathroom.</p><p> </p><p>
  <strong>343 Days After</strong>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>She was once again sat with Draco on a shitty old couch in a rundown safehouse while they watched some sort of reality TV show, well he watched while she read. She was sat in between his legs with her back pressed against his chest.</p><p>It was weird to be this comfortable with him already, but she supposed it was building for a while and it was obvious that he enjoyed physical intimacy, including the nonsexual kind. He would never admit to it, but she thought he enjoyed the innocent touching more than the sexual kind. She definitely wasn’t complaining - she was the one who fell asleep in his lap as a wolf and refused to move post-transformation back.</p><p>“Granger, you really should do something about this hair, it’s definitely going to suffocate me one day, if tonight is not that day then sometime in the future.” Normally when he commented on her hair, she would feel ire rise within her belly, but something about the playful tone he said it with had her blushing instead.</p><p>“Do you know how to braid?” She asked without spinning to see him.</p><p>“Huh?”</p><p>“Do you know how to braid?”</p><p>“Yeah, I heard you, just, why would I know how to braid?”</p><p>She looked over her shoulder to see him staring intently at her. She shrugged.</p><p>“I just thought maybe your mother, but that’s okay. Can I teach you?”</p><p>At this, his eyebrows furrowed together, his shoulders tightening and she immediately backtracked.</p><p>“That’s okay, we don’t have to.” She turned back to her book, sure that was the end of it until she felt him relax against her and his hands traced up her arms until they settled at the nape of her neck, buried in her hair.</p><p>“Teach me.” It was mumbled against her cheek and she could do nothing about the shiver traveled down her spine.</p><p>“You sure?”</p><p>She couldn’t keep the excitement from her voice, no one had done her hair since…well, her mom. Some girls in the Gryffindor dorms had tried in their earlier years at Hogwarts, but no one really seemed to know how to manage it like her mother did. She used to sit in front of her mother with her wide-tooth comb and beg her to play with her hair. It was bittersweet but doing it with Draco was different enough from her mother that it didn’t feel like she was replacing her. Not that she thought her mother would ever touch her hair again, either because of the oblivation or if she died in this war.</p><p>“Yeah, but no laughing if it turns out horribly or if my hands get stuck in her mane.”</p><p>At this, she hopped out of his arms and ran to her room to get everything she needed, desperate to be ready before he could change his mind.</p><p>When she returned to the couch, he was sitting upright and laughed mirthfully at her messed state when she returned with her hands full of haircare products.</p><p>“You need all of that just for braiding?”</p><p>“Not every time, but I grabbed the leave in conditioner since I’m teaching you, it’ll make it easier, especially if we have to do it several times. The comb is for if there are any tangles, which again will be needed if we have to redo it a couple of times. You ready? I think I’m going to do a quick one on myself towards the front of my head so I can show you the steps and then you can try, how does that sound?”</p><p>He looked overwhelmed and nervous and she laughed, he could stay calm and collected in battle, but a girl’s hair was enough to knock him off balance.</p><p>“Hey, I said no laughing!”</p><p>“You just look so scared, it’s okay, I promise my hair won’t eat you.”</p><p>He just nodded and gestured for her to start. She started a small French braid of some front pieces of her hair and made sure he could see where each piece was going and explained what she was doing before she did it. When she finished, she showed him the finished process and began to unravel the braid.</p><p>“Any questions?”</p><p>“No, I think I understand it.”</p><p>“Okay, I’m going to go wet my hair a little bit and then I’ll be back, it’ll make it a little less tangly.”</p><p>After lightly running water through her hair, she plopped down in front of Draco with her back in between his legs.</p><p>“Alright, so if you want to grab the bottle right there, just put like a dime size amount of it in your hands and run it through my hair.”</p><p>When he did as she directed, she let out a breath at the feel of his hands running through her hair.</p><p>“Okay, so now take the comb and go ahead and brush through my hair. You’ll probably get caught on some knots, that’s okay, just pull through, unless I tell you to stop.”</p><p>When he did eventually get caught on a knot, he stopped pulling and she tilted her head back so she could see his face.</p><p>“Why’d you stop?”</p><p>“I don’t want to hurt you.” His eyes met hers and she watched as his pupils dilated upon matching her gaze.</p><p>“Hey, no, it’s alright, you have to get the tangles out.”</p><p>“I should’ve done more to make sure no one else hurt you, but instead I hurt you myself or I watched as others did.”</p><p>He definitely wasn’t talking about her hair anymore.</p><p>“Draco, you apologized already, it’s okay. I forgive you; I forgive you for it all, I’ll give you any forgiveness you need, but you need to forgive yourself.”</p><p>“You know, Granger, I’m not a hero,” He bit down on his bottom lip as he finally tugged the comb through the knot in her hair and starts at the top of her head to attempt his first braid, pulling three sections just like she showed him, nudging her head to look forward instead of at him.</p><p>“Neither am I.” He tugged hard on her hair to show his displeasure.</p><p>“Yes, you swot, you are a hero. You don’t get to have a hero complex like you, you little lion, and not be a hero. Me on the other hand, I was raised to be a villain, no one asked me what I wanted, but I was raised to be a certain way. If my father had been successful, I would be a carbon copy of him, but more than likely marrying a pureblood witch who was raised to be sold off into a loveless marriage. My father got lucky with mother, they had a love marriage, but that’s not common in most of the twenty-eight. Although when Malfoy’s love, they’re truly dragons, we love obsessively and we definitely do not share, so maybe a loveless marriage would’ve been good for me. Did you know I was already sworn to Astoria Greengrass? Not that she is not without her own endearing features, but I would’ve never loved her.”</p><p>He stopped to twist his fingers around as he grabbed additional pieces of her hair and tried to tug them tighter, so they didn’t slip through his grasp.</p><p>“And for a man raised to be a villain, I could pull out all the stops for something I wanted or saw as right. It’s a very Slytherin trait, I’m sure your favorite light reading book touches on it, how Slytherins may make their own rules, which is what deems them villains to some, but we will stop at nothing to protect or uphold those rules or to get what we want within our grasp. You, you were something I wanted back in school, but I knew I could never have you. Not if I wanted to please my father, not if I wanted to be the Malfoy heir. All that shit about boys pulling a girl’s hair if they like her? I did that. I knew I couldn’t have you, so I made it so there was no question. I pushed you away so I didn’t have to pine over you because not only could I not have you because of society, but also because you hated me.”</p><p>“I never hated you, Draco.” Her voice was soft and scratchy, likely due to the shock induced tears in the back of her throat.</p><p>“Yeah? Well, that’s because you have such a big, bleeding heart. You should’ve hated me, and you should still hate me, and you should have never forgiven me, but for some reason the smartest witch of our generation made the stupidest decision, and you forgave me, and you actually seem to like me. And if I was a good person, I would push you away again because I am not good for you and you deserve so much better than me, but I am a Malfoy and a Slytherin and now that I have what I want, I don’t think I could ever let go. This is my warning, if you are mine, if anything or anyone threatens to take you away, I will burn this world to the ground. You are the only good thing in this life.”</p><p>“Draco.”</p><p>“Shh, it’s okay, you don’t have to say anything. It was just my warning, if you want to end things now, do it, but I needed you to know.”</p><p>She hated that she couldn’t twist her head to look at him as his hands were tangled halfway through the braid and they’re holding her head forward.</p><p>“Draco, I want you, that’s not changing.”</p><p>She felt his hands relax slightly against her scalp and heard the air leave his body in a relieved sigh. He didn’t respond, but his lips met the top of her head and she relaxed against his legs.</p><p>“How is it coming?”</p><p>“Psh, Granger, trust me, I do not know how you deal with this mane every day, but I am superior in all things, so I got this in the bag.”</p><p>She didn’t miss the way his hands faltered slightly or the light curse that escaped his lips and she just laughed quietly instead.</p><p>They were both too focused on each other that they didn’t hear the footsteps enter the room or notice the new people in the room.</p><p>“Oi, mate, look at this,” Seamus exclaimed loudly, and Hermione had to stop herself from jumping so she didn’t ruin Draco’s work, but she felt his hands tighten and she tilted her head to the side to glance at the newcomers.</p><p>Seamus stood next to Dean, who were both sporting shit-eating grins, and next to them was Lavender, who had a soft smile on her face. She couldn’t hide the blush or the smile on her face as the boys poked and prodded and teased Draco, as if he was one of their friends, as if they were back in Gryffindor tower. Just a couple of Hogwarts students, their houses not causing a rift between friendships.</p><p>She slept in the braid that night, sneakily charming it when Draco wasn’t looking so it would hold throughout the night.</p><p> </p><p>
  <strong>344 Days After</strong>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>“Hermione! I have a surprise for you!” It was Neville’s voice, she realized, calling for her. She quickly slipped on a jumper and a pair of shorts on and ran down the stairs, stopping halfway down when her eyes locked with sparkling green.</p><p>She almost fell down the rest of the stairs in her rush to greet her best friend, but she didn’t care as she jumped into his embrace, her arms wrapping tightly around him.</p><p>“Harry,” she breathed into his neck. She’d missed him, she hadn’t seen him in forever. “What are you doing here?” She asked once she released him and planted her feet firmly back on the ground.</p><p>“We need your help finding one of the last horcruxes.”</p><p>Her smile fell from her face, but she quickly planted a new one on and nodded. It was clearly not the time to be hurt that he was only here for her help, not to just see her. They were in war, none of them could afford to be taking social calls and she knew this.</p><p>“Don’t worry, it’s not just you researching and then us leaving on a mission again. We’re not leaving without you again, if we have to leave, we’ll take you with us. I trust you.”</p><p>She nodded again, forcing herself to look into his eyes again. He trusted her, did he not before? He had missed so much of her this year. He had seen her what – once? Twice? Since she was attacked and then went packing.</p><p>Shaking her head slightly, she pushed those thoughts out of her head. Horcrux hunting was important, they needed that if they had any shot of winning the war. It wasn’t personal, he didn’t just abandon her. It was for all of their safety.</p><p>“Hey, did you do something with your hair?"</p><p>From the shit-eating grin painting his face and the way he tugged on the end of the braid, she knew someone told her about what they saw. He even pinched her cheek when her face heated up at the memory.</p><p> </p><p>
  <strong>346 Days After</strong>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>It was Christmas. Christmas during a war and during the time that Hermione needed to be working, but Harry pulled her away from her books without listening to her arguments for continuing her work.</p><p>Shutting them all down with a quick, “It’s Christmas, Mione!”</p><p>They were at the Burrow, all of the Weasleys running about and creating mayhem. She dragged Draco with her, practically pulling him by his ear to get him to join them. He protested and whined about it, claiming he didn’t even like Christmas, but when his eyes took in the decorations Molly had charmed around their home, she knew he was lying.</p><p>Lupin and Tonks were here somewhere too, probably chasing Teddy around. The young boy was almost as wild as his blue hair, even at his young age.</p><p>Hermione desperately wanted to make things right with Ron, but short of him apologizing to her for his behavior and the cruelty that spilled from his lips, she couldn’t see it happening. Instead, she resigned herself to just keeping any interaction with him as short as possible.</p><p>Draco shadowed her almost the whole night, until Fred approached him, George close behind him, and asked him to help with a prank.</p><p>“Malfoy, fancy helping us pull one over on Ron?”</p><p>One of his eyebrows quirked up the suggestion and his hand that was clasped in hers squeezed before letting go, landing on Fred’s shoulder. “Might I give some suggestions first?”</p><p>When Fred looked between the two of them and a devious smirk graced his features, she knew they were in for it that night. But them getting along was probably the best Christmas gift she could’ve received so she just let it happen, resigning to sit next to Ginny and Harry while they waited for the chaos.</p><p>When it finally came, it was late into the night, but still before dinner. After dinner would be their traditional Quidditch game, so she knew their pranks would end before then so as to not interfere.</p><p>Ron came running into the living room, wails and screams louder than she thought possible leaving him as he stumbled over his own feet.</p><p>“Spiders! Spiders! Mom!”</p><p>True to his word, hundreds, if not thousands, of spiders came scampering into the room behind Ron. Hermione and Ginny in unison picked their feet up off the ground to rest underneath them on the couch, out of the path the spiders were creating behind the ginger man. Harry doubled over from laughter, muttering something unintelligible about Aragog as he tried to control his breathing.</p><p>“Mione! Gin! Help! Bloody hell where did they come from?”</p><p>Looking around the room, Hermione tried to spot Draco or the twins, her eyes stopping when she saw the trio in the doorway to the yard, all 3 of their wands aimed at Ron as they controlled the likely transfigured spiders. Fred and George had their familiar “I’m pulling a prank” face that was composed of a mischievous smile and concentrated brows, while Draco was full on laughing. His face was turning red as he nearly doubled over with each hiccup and when his eyes suddenly shifted to meet hers, his smile broadened even more.</p><p>“What is all this racket about?” Molly stormed into the room, a kitchen towel thrown over her shoulder as she pointed her finger at Ron. The trio immediately pocketed their wands, the spiders stilling and transforming into pellets of owl treats. As Molly tore into her youngest son, lecturing about manners, Draco sat on the other side of Hermione, his hand squeezing her thigh as he smiled at her.</p><p>“Have fun?”</p><p>“Oh, absolutely, any excuse to mess with the Weasel.”</p><p>She wanted to scold him for the nickname, but when she opened her mouth to do so, he leaned forward and kissed both of her cheeks.</p><p>“You can’t be mad at me, I’m just getting to know your magic family. Fred and George are just the most fun.” When Ginny cleared her throat, he added, “Weaslette, you’re up there too.”</p><p>Hermione couldn’t even form words, her eyes locked on his face, completely transformed by the biggest smile she had ever seen. Her face was undoubtedly coated in a furious blush and her brain was reeling from his words. <em>Getting to know your magic family</em>. She couldn’t even stop herself when she leaned over and kissed him, one hand interlacing in his that was still on her thigh and the other rested over his heart.</p><p>Ginny let out a loud whoop from behind her and Harry groaned, but she paid them no mind. When she pulled away, she remained close to him, her eyes searching his. Her lips quirked up into a shy smile and he leaned forward to press a chaste kiss to them before he retreated fully.</p><p>Her heart was beating so hard she was surprised her chest hadn’t tore open and it leaped out and took its rightful home in Draco’s hands.</p><p>Fuck.</p><p>She was in love with Draco Malfoy.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. [four]</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <strong>351 Days After</strong>
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</p><p>Harry wasn’t kidding when he said they needed her help. They had no idea what they were even looking for, he came rushing back for her, expecting her to figure it out with almost no hints, not clues, nothing. Simply the idea that it should be a Ravenclaw house item.</p><p>He definitely wasn’t off base considering Voldemort’s penchant for symbolism. Slytherin locket, Hufflepuff cup. He probably would’ve tried for the Gryffindor sword if he could. That just left Ravenclaw.</p><p>She’d been poring over books for the last week and found almost nothing. Dozens of abandoned tomes covered the coffee table, the couch, and the floor, surrounding her in a circle as she sat cross-legged in the middle.</p><p>Her eyes were starting to hurt, and she was probably her sixth cup of tea for the day and it was only 6 in the morning. She can’t recall when the last time she slept was. She’d been downing Pepper Up potions to keep her running. This was a time sensitive concern and her frivolous need for sleep couldn’t get in the way.</p><p>“Hey, Granger, when was the last time you ate?”</p><p>His voice startled her so much that she almost knocked her mug over onto one of her discarded books. She hadn’t heard him approach, even with her keen senses.</p><p>“Um,” she paused to consider the last meal she had. Along with Pepper Up potions, she was drinking nutritional potions like they were her vice.</p><p>“If you have to think about it, it’s clearly been too long. C’mon, I’ll make you breakfast.”</p><p>“Draco- “</p><p>“Nope, no arguing. Nutritional potions are not a solid meal. Let’s go, get up, your books will still be here when you’re done.”</p><p>“Draco, I need to figure this out!” She didn’t mean to snap at him, but not understanding something made her testy and it made her temper easy to flare.</p><p>“How about I help you? You come eat some food with me, hour max, and then we’ll both return to the eighth circle of hell you’ve drawn up here.”</p><p>When she met his eyes, she noted the crease drawn between his eyebrows. The crease that only emerged when he was concerned. She stood and followed closely behind him towards the kitchen. When he cooked, she closely trailed his movements, drinking him in as he moved with a certain grace that almost made her jealous.</p><p>When he set her plate in front of her, she thanked him and devoured the food he cooked, glaring up at him when he laughed outright at her. But watching him open up and laugh freely in front of her softened her immediately, her insides melting with adoration.</p><p>He kept his promise: when they finished their food, they reentered her sphere of books. He didn’t even need her direction, picking up one that sat unopened in a stack, not yet touched by her. When she sighed loudly in frustration, he twisted so he was sat against the couch and opened his legs so she could lay between them. One of his hands tangled within her hair, playing with her curls, while his other held his book open.</p><p> </p><p>
  <strong>353 Days After</strong>
</p><p> </p><p>It had been two days since Draco started to help her with her search and his presence definitely helped, although he did make her take breaks to eat and sleep. He told her with an extra person, she could afford the time to take care of herself. She didn’t even bother arguing, as each time all he had to do was pick her up and carry her to the bedroom. When she still refused to sleep, he’d begin to kiss down her body until he reached where she needed him most. Or he’d shed both of their clothes quickly and fuck her until she was crying out his name.</p><p>“Stress relief,” he claimed when she told him he needed to stop distracting her, then he’d kiss her until he swallowed each and every last complaint she could think of, rendering her speechless. Turning her into putty in his hands. Sometimes she’d argue just so he could fuck her against the door or eat her out in the shower. When she argued too much, she’d sink to her knees in front of him and her apology never made it to the air when her mouth opened.</p><p>But they had finally found something. Rowena Ravenclaw’s diadem. It had taken a quick suggestion from Luna when she arrived at the safehouse.</p><p>They were currently drawing up the mission plans. Hogwarts had fallen to the Voldemort shortly after Dumbledore’s death, but the diadem could be nowhere other than there.</p><p>Three of them were planning to sneak in under Harry’s invisibility cloak, find it, and quickly portkey out before someone could realize something was up.</p><p>Their biggest issue was that Hogwarts had become a second home base for the death eaters. Malfoy Manor remained their headquarters, likely due to the protection of the ley lines and blood wards that the old generations of Malfoys had drawn up.</p><p>But Voldemort’s residency inside Hogwarts was entirely to taunt the Order, more specifically Harry. A place that was supposed to be the safest place one could be, it was supposed to be a school that protected its own, but instead the darkest wizard of their time was using it for his own bidding.</p><p>Their other issue was trying to figure out who was going to be under the invisibility cloak. Harry had to go, he was the one who could sense the horcruxes, although it was incredibly stupid for him to be waltzing right under Voldemort’s nose. Hermione insisted on going, despite both Draco and Ron’s protests, but she was incredible at dueling and one look at Harry that said, “you left me behind before, remember?” and he was on her side. When Luna volunteered to be the third person, her light airy voice quiet underneath the loud arguing of the others fighting for the spot, Hermione took her up on it.</p><p>She said Luna was a big help in finding out what they were looking for and she was smart, they could use her help. Harry argued, saying he didn’t want to put her in danger, this was a dangerous mission, but Luna grabbed his hand and smiled, and his protests died in his throat.</p><p>It was settled, the three of them would be going to Hogwarts that night.</p><p>When their impromptu meeting ended, Draco grasped Hermione’s wrist and pulled her behind him until they reached his bedroom. He locked the door behind him before descending on her, his mouth capturing hers, breaking apart to pull her jumper over her head. He groaned when he realized she wasn’t wearing a bra. His lips moved to her jaw and she tilted her head back, moaning when his lips bit below her ear.</p><p>She gripped at his hair and pulled his mouth back up to hers, pulling at his shirt until he tore it off, his hands gripping her thighs as he lifted her up, her legs wrapping around his waist. He walked them until they reached the bed, and he threw her onto it, climbing over her before his lips met hers again. His hands pulling her shorts down her legs.</p><p>Her hips lifted from the bed to roll against his, her breath hitching when she felt how hard he already was. His lips left hers and began to descend down her body, kissing at her breasts, pulling a nipple into his mouth while his hand reached up to massage her other.</p><p>His other hand ghosted down her side until it reached the waistband of her underwear. When she canted her hips upwards again, seeking his hand, he slipped under, his fingers running through her slick before sliding back up to her clit. When she let out a heavy breath, he slipped a finger inside, smirking against her chest at her gasp.</p><p>When he continued to kiss further down her body, his eyes holding contact with hers the entire way, she nearly toppled over the edge just at the sight.</p><p>“Fuck.”</p><p>His mouth closed on her clit and her hips jerked up again. His other arm settled against her hips, holding her still against the mattress. She tangled her hands in the bedding next to her, her breathing escaping her in heavy puffs.</p><p>He slipped a second finger in her and curled them upwards and she choked on a gasped curse. “Fuck, Draco.”</p><p>He hummed against her and the vibrations had her mind reeling. Her head fell against the pillow and she closed her eyes. He pulled his mouth away and she nearly whined at the loss.</p><p>“Look at me.”</p><p>Well, who could say no to that? When she lifted her eyes to his once more, he lowered back to kiss against her.</p><p>“Oh, fuck.”</p><p>As his mouth sucked at her clit, his fingers continued to work in and out of her and her orgasm washed over her, her thighs squeezing against his head, her hips lifting into his arm, a loud cry of his name rushed out of her as he continued to work her through her high.</p><p>“Fuck.”</p><p>He grinned at her before he pulled her in for a kiss, tasting herself on his tongue. She cupped him in her hand through his pants before rolling them over, so she straddled his hips. She made quick work of his belt and pulled his pants and boxers down in one fell swoop.</p><p>She wrapped her hand around him, letting her thumb swipe at the precum at the tip before pumping him. His hand reached around to wrap around her throat as he pulled her in for another kiss, his hand squeezing the sides of her neck. She positioned him before sinking down, taking him entirely in one go. He swallowed her moan as his tongue worked against her own.</p><p>His hand left her throat to join the other at her hips, holding her against him as she began to roll her hips back and forth.</p><p>“Fuck, Granger, you look so good on my cock, you know that?”</p><p>At that, she raised up on her knees before bouncing back down and he let out a strangled groan. She smirked before picking up a steady rhythm.</p><p>“I have never seen something so beautiful; you are perfect.” He leaned upwards so their chests were pressed together and captured her mouth again. At this angle, her clit brushed against his pelvis with every thrust and she cried out at the feeling.</p><p>As she neared her orgasm, he rolled his hips, speeding up her rhythm before she fell apart, her head tucked against his neck. Before she had even finished riding through her climax, he flipped them over, thrusting into her to chase his own high. His hand reached between them and rolled around her clit before brushing up and down.</p><p>“Granger, fuck, I’m close.”</p><p>She fell over the edge again, her walls fluttering against him which drew him to his own finish.</p><p>He slipped out of her and curled up around her, massaging her shoulders as she basked in the boneless feeling that prevented her from moving.</p><p>He kissed along the junction between her neck and shoulder before planting a single kiss on the back of her neck.</p><p>“Be careful today. Don’t die.” He whispered in her ear; his voice strained as if lined with pain at the thought. As if the thought of her going on such a dangerous mission, especially without him, had him physically in pain.</p><p>She twisted around to look at him, offering him a small smile.</p><p>“I’ll try not to.”</p><p>It does little to appease him, but she can’t promise something she can’t for sure keep. She would try, she would. She would try her best to get all three of them back alive, even if it is just to be able to look into these liquid mercury eyes once more before she’s sent on an equally dangerous mission the next day.</p><p>His arm around her tightened, pressing her closer to him, his head tucked into her neck.</p><p>“Draco.” She started and immediately stopped before she said too much.</p><p>“Hmm?” He hums into her neck, tickling her skin.</p><p>“I can’t promise anything about the mission tomorrow. But I…I’m promising you forever. I don’t know how long forever is, or will be, but I’m yours, forever.”</p><p>His head buried further into her neck, nuzzling into her hair. “Good, I wasn’t planning on ever letting you go.”</p><p>She was nervous though. They were basically walking into a trap. Sure, they didn’t know they were coming, but once they were inside, they only could get out with their portkey. There’s no apparating and if they do manage to get in under the cloak, there was no way they would have enough luck to make it back out under the same guise.</p><p>When it finally comes time to head out, Hermione dressed in her typical dark battle clothes, forgoing the jacket with the Phoenix band on the arm. It’s the three of them, both of her companions easily recognizable, they didn’t need anything more to stand out. She was relieved when she met them downstairs and saw they had the same idea.</p><p>She started to walk towards the duo to side along, but then spun and walked back to where Draco was standing and watching them. She cupped both sides of his face within her hands and pulled him down for a kiss. It was short, but quietly desperate, almost like a goodbye, but not quite. A see you later.</p><p>“Draco, I- “</p><p>“I know. Don’t say it as if you won’t be coming back. You can tell me when you get back.”</p><p> </p><p>--</p><p> </p><p>After a long lecture about the apparating laws surrounding Hogwarts and a subsequent lecture of how it would be stupid to apparate directly into Hogsmeade, the trio lands in the forest just beyond Hogwarts.</p><p>Throwing the cloak over their heads, Harry drew out the Marauder’s Map. Hermione knew it would come in handy with avoiding the patrols throughout the castle.</p><p>“Alright, so we have to get in first, but we want to find Helena Ravenclaw’s ghost first, right? See if she has any ideas?”</p><p>“Yeah, Luna, you know where she is right?”</p><p>“Yes. She’s quite nice, after all. I used to visit her when the nifflers took my things. She said I was more pleasant to her than most.”</p><p>Hermione and Harry just nodded in response. They weren’t sure what surprises awaited them inside the castle, but this was their only chance. Lupin and Moody arranged a large offensive mission to try to draw out more of the death eaters on reserve, hoping it meant less of them would be at Hogwarts.</p><p>She wasn’t so sure this wasn’t still a death trap though.</p><p>“Alright, so according to the map there’s no one in the corridor that leads to the entrance. Surprising, but we’ll have to take advantage of that and move fast. The absence of guards could just be the gap in between shift changes. We may be invisible, but we don’t want to tempt fate.”</p><p>They moved fast – well, as fast as they could with three of them under the cloak. It had certainly felt larger when they were in their younger years.</p><p>The grounds of the castle reeked of dark magic and Hermione had to hold a hand over her nose to prevent from gagging. The dark curses hung like a heavy blanket over what used to be something precious. Harry seemed equally perturbed, but Luna’s airy presence seemed unaffected. She was a good choice to come with. They needed her.</p><p>Inside the castle, Hermione could see the damage the careless league of Voldemort’s army had inflicted on the castle. It seemed as though the school was rebelling against the intrusion of dark magic – locking doors and refusing to move the stairs - and they got angry. Doors were bombarda’d, but they remained strong on their hinges, if a little bent.</p><p>Harry held the map in his hands, carefully studying it for other figures, but they were none.</p><p>“Alright, Luna, where is Helena?”</p><p>They followed as she led them to the ghost dubbed “The Gray Lady.” They ran up several staircases, a difficult task under the guise of the cloak, but necessary.</p><p>When they finally found her, the terror that gripped at Hermione when they slipped the cloak off their heads was intense.</p><p>“Hi Helena, it’s me, Luna. Do you remember me?” Luna’s voice still held the airy fascination that Hermione used to hate. But now she clung to it in its familiarity, something that hadn’t changed through the war.</p><p>Luna had been captured during one of their earlier missions, before Hermione had even been attacked. She was held prisoner for months before the Order was able to rescue her. They had continuously changed the locations they held her, throwing them off their scent. Every time they got a trail, a trace of evidence, they’d switch locations.</p><p>Luna had been in bad shape when they finally found her. Emaciated, bones sticking out under thin skin. Her hair had obviously been cut - or ripped, Hermione hadn’t been able to tell. Her hair was now reaching her collarbones, which was odd compared to how long it had been before. Luna said it was easier for battle, when she caught Hermione looking. She didn’t entirely believe her, but she never said nothing.</p><p>The Order was low on funds throughout the war, so they didn’t always have enough food, but they had gotten Luna back up to a healthier weight. Luna never went onto direct battles though, despite being an active Order member. Hermione knew it was because Lupin couldn’t bear it. Moody wanted to, claimed she was a good, strong fighter. But Moody hadn’t been on the rescue mission. Lupin had. He was the one that carried an unconscious Luna into Grimmauld, nearly unrecognizable under all the bruises and blood.</p><p>Lupin had obviously won that battle – until now at least. Luna only ever went on missions where it was unlikely any dueling would occur. Things like delivering information to several safehouses. They were currently in the process of training her as a permanent healer. They all underwent the basic training, but Luna was well within the advanced training now.</p><p>“Yes, I remember you. Who are your friends?”</p><p>Helena looked exactly like all the pictures Hermione had seen of her in her textbooks, strikingly similar to Rowena. Except she looked much sadder, which made sense given the betrayal that stains her death.</p><p>“Oh!” She said, spinning around as though she had forgot they were with her. “This is Hermione Granger and Harry Potter.”</p><p>As Harry talked with the ghost, more like begged the ghost, Hermione consulted the map. Voldemort was nowhere on it, which was a blessing. She really did not want to deal with any mishaps with him, especially considering he was the only one of the death eater army that could kill Harry. The others could try and capture him, sure, but she knew they were under instructions not to kill, which played to their advantage.</p><p>However, there were now guards flanking the entrance to Hogwarts, meaning they should try to use one of the secret tunnels instead of the main door. Patrols walked up and down the halls, but there were maybe two to a hall.</p><p>Helena wasn’t admitting any secrets, but Harry managed to get a small hint out of her, so now the trio were running through the halls, sans cloak. There weren’t any patrols in this area according to the map and they could run much faster without it.</p><p>When they finally made it to the Room of Hidden Things, they were winded and tired, not to mention ready to get out of there. Harry, with his ability to sense the horcruxes, was walking briskly throughout the room. She knew he was hoping to feel a draw towards something, hoping to make this as quick as possible.</p><p>But his ability to sense the horcruxes concerned her. Why could he? They had already ruled out Voldemort possessing him. What other connection did they have? Besides the prophecy. Hermione suspected that maybe, just perhaps, part of Voldemort’s soul was inside Harry. Making him a horcrux. She didn’t want to entertain that idea but watching him as he was drawn to a wooden box on round table, she can’t help but think that just maybe that was what was going on.</p><p>“Looks like a diadem, doesn’t it?” Harry said, fascination in his eyes as he trailed his hands over the jewels.</p><p>“It’s beautiful. Just like him to taint something as precious as this. A big fuck you to Hogwarts.”</p><p>Draco was influencing her too much, surely, based on the look Harry gave her.</p><p>“Alright, let’s get out of here.”</p><p>Pulling the map out once again, they noticed that there were more death eaters than before, they must’ve been coming back from missions. Casting a quick notice-me-not charm on the three of them – just in case the cloak slips – Hermione tugged it over them, her wand gripped tightly her in hand.</p><p>They trekked quickly through the halls, avoiding the heavily populated areas. They should’ve destroyed the diadem in Hogwarts, so they weren’t holding onto it for long, but spending another second in a snake’s den was even worse of an idea.</p><p>Turning a quick corner towards one of the tunnels, Harry faltered to a quick stop. Hermione stopped in time, but Luna stopped a second too late, the cloak slipping from her figure. Hermione gripped at her arm from under the cloak to try and pull her back under, but the group of patrols at the end of the hall, the ones Harry had stopped upon noticing, had already seen her.</p><p>“Oi, how’d you get in here, pretty lady?”</p><p>Luna’s already raised wand took out two of the men in the hall in quick succession. Hermione and Harry started to slip out from under the cloak to help her, wands at the ready, but one of the death eaters had sent a curse towards Luna, one with a blue light. Hermione didn’t recognize it.</p><p>Luna let out a loud wail before falling to the ground. Hermione reached an arm out of its invisible hold and sent out her modified slicing charm, slitting the throats of each remaining patrol officer without blinking. She didn’t have time to think about Harry, preacher of light magic, standing right next to her. She simply ran forward, casting both a lightweight and a stasis charm on Luna’s limp body. She wasn’t sure the stasis would work on the curse given its unknown properties, but she had to try.</p><p>Once she held Luna in her arms, she returned to the safe haven of the cloak. Hermione and Harry wasted no more time, running through the halls towards the tunnel. Once reaching the forest they arrived in, they apparated back to Grimmauld.</p><p>“Help! We need a healer in here! Pomfrey!”</p><p>Once Harry had cleared all it, Hermione set Luna down onto the table. She caught a glimpse of where the blue light had hit her and nearly lost her stomach. The skin on her side was peeling and rotting away within seconds as it fell off her ribs in thick clumps, the muscle layers underneath were bubbling and she could already see glimpses of white bone. Her stasis charm evidently had done nothing, the curse was still eating away at the small blonde.</p><p>Luna was somehow still conscious, cries of anguish and calls for Neville slipped out of her mouth. Hermione quickly casted a numbing spell over her, something she should’ve done earlier. Luna’s pain seemed to have leveled, as she fixed her gaze onto the brunette.</p><p>“Mione, do you know where Neville is?”</p><p>Pomfrey entered the room right then, bustling in at a run, her arms full of healing supplies of all kinds.</p><p>“What do we got?” She said as she spelled a diagnosis spell.</p><p>“She got hit with some sort of nonverbal curse, the light was a blue like I’ve never seen. It seems to be rotting away at her tissue where it hit her. I performed a stasis charm when it first happened, but it seems to have had no effect. I’ve also just numbed her since she seemed to be in quite some pain.”</p><p>Harry was looking quite perturbed, his back pressed tightly against the wall in the far corner. He was running a hand through his hair wildly, his chest rising and falling in quick concessions. He didn’t want her to come, she knew. He hadn’t seen as many people die in front of him as the rest of them. He had seen more than enough, but not as much as the rest of them going into battles while he was horcrux hunting. He was panicking. He didn’t know what to do and seemed to feel useless.</p><p>“Hey, Harry, why don’t you send a Patronus to Neville? See if he can come back. I’ll send one to Lupin.” She said in the softest tone she could manage. It almost felt like she was talking to an injured animal, afraid to move too fast, talk too loudly. When he nodded and exited to a different room, Hermione quickly called upon her Otter to send for Lupin, telling him it was urgent.</p><p>Hermione stood next to Luna, talking to her about nargles and nifflers and thestrals while holding her hand while Pomfrey did her best work on her ribs. Luna was growing weaker; she could tell by the way her grip faltered in hers and her eyes became slightly unfocused.</p><p>When Pomfrey stepped away from her side and sighed, Hermione knew there was nothing left that she could do. It was a curse they didn’t know; they hadn’t even heard the incantation.</p><p>Hermione let her eyes lock back onto Luna’s, hating the way they seemed so much duller than they should be. Luna was bright and full of happiness, even in the darkest of times, even when people didn’t appreciate her for it. She wasn’t supposed to die like this, without Neville. With only Hermione to hold her hand and talk about subjects she didn’t quite know enough about.</p><p>Neville was Luna’s best friend, Hermione wasn’t quite convinced there wasn’t more going on between the two, but she never said anything. And he wasn’t here. He wasn’t here because he was likely on the mission that was meant to distract for their own mission.</p><p>“Mione?” It’s weak and soft, but somehow not missing the airy quality Luna embodied.</p><p>“What do you need, Luna?”</p><p>“Can you tell Neville that I love him?” Her breath was heavy now, like she was gasping for the little air she could draw into her lungs. Her now rotting lungs.</p><p>“Of course I can.”</p><p>Luna smiled softly at Hermione before her chest stuttered and she gasped.</p><p>“Luna? Luna?”</p><p>Pomfrey approached from the other side, resting two fingers under the blonde’s jaw. She shook her head at Hermione, slow tears trailing down her cheeks. They all loved Luna. She was too good for this war.</p><p>A loud bustling sound distracted her, her head snapping up to watch the hallway. When Neville came running in, Harry trailing behind him, Hermione let herself back away from Luna. She saw Neville’s lips moving, but she couldn’t hear anything he was saying, it was like the world had stopped. It was moving in slow motion; she was sure of it. Harry’s voice was next to her, comforting Neville as he cried over the small witch.</p><p>She could feel her heart dissolving in her chest. She squeezed Neville’s shoulder before exiting the room. Her head was thumping loudly as she walked, her vision twisting and pulling, her ears buzzing with waves.</p><p>The room behind her was practically pulsing with grief, sending shockwaves through her as she steadied herself against the wall. She needed to get out of there before her world imploded around her. So, she ran.</p><p> </p><p>
  <strong>354 Days After</strong>
</p><p> </p><p>Draco found her in the same place he always did when she was overwhelmed by her emotions. Exploding trees in the backyard of a remote safehouse.</p><p>This time she was sure she hadn't stopped for hours. Her arm had gotten so tired from holding her wand that she was attempting wandless charms. They were working too, each successive tree catching fire and exploding in front of her.</p><p>“Granger.” She jumped at the voice, twisting around, showcasing the purple bruises smudged under her eyes, salty tears unshed still.</p><p>“Draco.”</p><p>“How long have you been out here?”</p><p>“I don’t know, what time is it?”</p><p>“It’s 4:56 in the morning.”</p><p>“Oh. I’ve been out here overnight then. I didn’t notice it had gotten dark.”</p><p>“Come on, let’s get you some food.”</p><p>“Have you seen Neville?”</p><p>“Yeah, he’s locked himself in her room. Says he needs time or space. He isn’t sure which. He hasn’t really stopped crying, but I brought him some food before I came out here.”</p><p>“Can I bring my food and eat with him?”</p><p>“You can try, he wasn’t really letting anyone inside.”</p><p>So, she did exactly that. She <em>alohomora</em>’d the lock and set both of their food at the end of the bed before lying next to him, shoulder to shoulder like they had done so many times. She quickly enchanted the ceiling to show the night sky once more. Neither of them spoke, but when Neville slipped his hand into hers and squeezed, she gripped harder.</p><p> </p><p>
  <strong>357 Days After</strong>
</p><p> </p><p>It felt wrong. She stared at the broken pieces of the diadem on the same table Luna had died on. It felt wrong.</p><p> </p><p>
  <strong>363 Days After</strong>
</p><p> </p><p>“Draco.”</p><p>“Hmm?”</p><p>They were in his bed, curled up next to each other, one of his hands twisted in her curls while the other rubbed circles on her back. She had her hands on his chest, one stationary while the other traced the scars running jagged across it.</p><p>“I just want you to know that I forgive you. I know I’ve told you before, but you need to know.  For everything. I don’t want you to keep blaming yourself, please.”</p><p>He didn’t say anything, instead just kissed her forehead.</p><p>“Do you want children?”</p><p>“Excuse me?”</p><p>“Well, obviously not right now, but after the war, after we win, do you want a family?”</p><p>“I’ve never really thought about it. I was raised expected to be the heir of the Malfoy name. I knew eventually I’d have a child, I had to provide an heir, of course.”</p><p>“But do you want a family? You already abandoned other expectations of the Malfoy heir, so do you want to have kids eventually?”</p><p>“Yes, eventually. With the right person.”</p><p>The right person was starting to feel like him. She wanted to live, so she could get to know the blond next to her, so she could marry him, so they could have kids together. So, they could have forever together.</p><p> </p><p>
  <strong>365 Days After</strong>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>Hermione was not sure she’d ever seen a battlefield as disastrous as the one before her right now. And she had seen too many battles.</p><p>The forest surrounding the expanse was burning, flames from misfired curses sprouting and spreading like a disease. Except the fire wasn’t burning just the trees, she could taste the smell of burnt flesh that she hoped was from fallen soldiers, dead soldiers, and that there was no one alive in the flames. She was not sure she’d be able to smell the difference.</p><p>There was blood soaking into the ground below her feet and each step caused a squelching noise. She saw bodies everywhere and if it weren’t for the smoke choking her, she knew she’d see several Phoenix figures on their arms. Her people, she knows, were not winning this battle.</p><p>It was supposed to be a quick, afternoon mission. That was the only reason she was even here because tonight was the full moon and her and her team were supposed to be long gone and home. How they even knew they’d be here was beyond her. But they knew and she was forced to call for backup with their protean charmed coin. She thought this might be the final battle, there was a scent of anticipation coating the air, as if something was about to strike.</p><p>She could feel the transformation bubbling under her skin and she <em>needed </em>to get out of there. But she couldn’t, wouldn’t, leave her team. Even if they were all dead, she would not be leaving their bodies behind for pickings.</p><p>The air around her was thick with smoke and she was struggling not to cough with each intake of breath. As she looked around, she supposed the veil made it hard for both sides to fight, she couldn’t see ten feet in front of her. She couldn’t find backup and she couldn’t see if who she was hexing was the enemy until they were right in front of her, forcing her to use non-lethal spells. The Death Eaters either didn’t care if they misfired on their own people or they realized it was acceptable losses to take down the resistance.</p><p>Hermione was left wracking her brain for a spell that would incapacitate them for long enough that she could kill them when she was close enough to identify an enemy. Her <em>stupefy</em>seemed to not be strong enough or the Death Eaters had found a way around being affected by it.</p><p>She needed to find her team and get them out of there. She was the mission leader; she was responsible for each of their lives and she’d be damned if she lost a single one of them. If she hadn’t already.</p><p>Blood was dripping down the side of her face from a cut she got from a duck and roll method she used to avoid a killing curse sent her way, skin snagging on a branch. She could taste it as it dripped onto her chapped lips, mixing with the sweat coating her skin.</p><p>She couldn’t tell how long she had until the wolf in her took over, the smoke was too thick to see the sky, but she knew it was getting dark. She could practically feel it prancing under her skin, ready to pounce the second it was free.</p><p>A bright red light shot towards her and she was too late to stop it. She was writhing on the ground as the <em>crucio</em>burned through her veins. The pain was everywhere, but nowhere and it was futile to fight against it. Screams tore through her throat and the sound surrounded her as the fire from the curse continued to burn. She was not sure who the caster is, but they meant it.</p><p>When it was finally done, Hermione was unsure as to how long she was under it. A minute? Two minutes? The aftershock tremors took over her body and she gripped onto her thighs to keep her arms from spasming. She tried to stand, but her legs wobbled under the new weight and the world spun around her and she collapsed back onto the ground.</p><p>Before she could even attempt for a second time, the wizard was standing above her, his boot digging into her chest as it pushed her prone onto the mud. She almost cried out in relief seeing the almost white-blond hair, but the relief soon turned into cold fear when she realized its length and the disgusted sneer that was directed at her.</p><p>It was not her teammate, her friend, the man she had come to love. It was his father.</p><p>“Ah, Miss Granger, you seem to have an appreciation for laying on the floor when in my presence.”</p><p>“Or you lot have an appreciation for torturing me while I lay on the ground.”</p><p>Before she could process what she was doing, she was gathering the spit in her mouth and sending it flying at Lucius. The sick satisfaction of seeing her bloody spit crawl down his cheek had her grinning, fueling his anger.</p><p>His hand raised and she has half a mind to think he was going to slap her, but instead his hand traced across her face. Her scars. Her mind reeled at the stark difference of Draco tracing them compared to his father.</p><p>“Almost fitting that the exterior matches the interior now. You always were a filthy waste of magic.”</p><p>“Almost like you…destroying the powerful Malfoy name for pureblood prejudices.”</p><p>She should shut up, she really should, but she couldn’t help but egg him on. If he was going to kill her, she was going to get her say in first. Everyone did say she was blindly courageous, most Gryffindors were and she was fulfilling the stereotypes with every retort she threw at the older Malfoy.</p><p>The hand that had been tracing her scars was now on her neck, not squeezing hard enough that she couldn’t breathe, but hard enough that she could feel the bruises echoing under his touch. “Draco is ashamed of you; I hope you know.” Her voice came out raspy, her words straining under his touch that threatened to choke them back down.</p><p>“If I see my son, he will not be making it out of this battle alive, but not before I have my fun with the traitor,” his face was pressed closer to hers as he leaned over her, his breath was cruel as it lashed against her skin.</p><p>Her dagger was in its holster on her upper arm and using the last of the magic she could conjure in her exhaustion, she <em>acciod </em>it into her hand. Her hands were still free – likely from Lucius’ hubris – and she sucked in a sharp gulp of air as she swung them forward, knife in her right hand. Her knife missed its target as Lucius jerked back at the sudden movement but gained purchase as it dug a trail down the side of his face, just narrowly missing his eye.</p><p>His hands jerked out and thrusted her hands above her head, her wrists tightly shackled in his grasp.</p><p>“You bitch!"</p><p>She tasted the blow he gives her as her vision twisted and the taste of blood teased her lips. His wand was out now and aimed towards her and she knew she would be going out brutally, she ensured that with her quick retorts and attacking back.</p><p>“Oh, mudblood, don’t worry, I’m not going to <em>crucio</em>you, I have so much more in store for you. But we don’t want you moving too much, do we? <em>Incarcerous.</em>”</p><p>The smile that took over his face was nothing less than that of a sadist’s. She’d sealed her fate now. The ropes wrapped around her body and prevented her from fighting back, tightening with each struggle like quicksand.</p><p>She supposed this is one way to go. The father of the man she was in love with killing her. It was almost like karma, she had compared Draco to his father numerous times, accused him of following in his footsteps. Now she’d be killed by him.</p><p>Gasping, Hermione felt his wand dig into her neck, he was using a slicing charm, she realized, as he carved a thin layer of skin off. Like he’s skinning an animal – she supposes he was. The blood was warm and thick as it ran down the side of her neck in rivulets.</p><p>The pain from it was sharp and she bit down on her tongue to keep from screaming. Hard. She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of hearing her. She stared up at the sky she could see through slots of the thick smoke. A tear escaped from her eye and ran down her face before joining the blood pooling around her.</p><p>The stars hung in blankets above her, fresh from their day’s sleep. She felt her heart tighten at the realization that she may never see them again and her eyes scoured for a glimpse of the Draco constellation. She wanted the comfort of seeing a part of him before she was no longer breathing and the man torturing her was beginning to resemble him too much in her anguish.</p><p>Wait.</p><p>Stars.</p><p>The sun had already set.</p><p>She was going to transform soon.</p><p>Closing her eyes, Hermione willed it to happen sooner. Just do it, she hadn’t taken as much wolfsbane as she’d have liked, but she had it in her morning tea. She hoped that was enough to prevent her from attacking friendly persons.</p><p>Jerking forward from the sudden onslaught of pain, she felt her body begin to break. The sound of her shoulder breaking and the charmed robes tightening around her caused Lucius to snap his head to look at her face. His eyes locked onto hers and she sucks in a breath as she searched for the differences between his grey and Draco’s. She was focusing on it so much; she almost didn’t feel the familiar itch of fur sprouting from her skin.</p><p>As her body continued to snap and reshape, Lucius started to stand, but caught his foot on a stray rope from his spell on her. Surprisingly the incarcerous spell doesn’t hold on her as she shifted into a wolf. She was grateful, but also disappointed. The wolfsbane had better been enough of a dosage.</p><p>Sharpened vision allowed her to see through the smog layer as she perused her surroundings. The scent of the blood, the fallen bodies, the fire, had her inhaling sharply. Her head swiveled around and spotted Lucius scampering away on his elbows while his wide, fear-filled eyes stared at her.</p><p>So, her wolfsbane did work, she realized as she feels the hungry shoot through her limbs, her blood, her heart. She knew who he is. And she wants him dead.</p><p>Not even just for what he stood for, what he had done to her, what he’d watched be done to her. She wanted him dead for what he had done to Draco. The thought alone of Draco had her heightened sense of emotions barreling through her with affection. She loved Draco as a human, but her wolf revered him.</p><p>Snarling, she began to stalk towards him, the hackles on her back rising. Satisfaction curled under her skin, comforting her as she started to walk towards him. Lucius was no longer scrambling backwards on his hands and knees, instead it seemed as though he was arrested in place. His grey irises, those that resembled Draco’s so closely, were wide, his pupils contracted into pinpricks as his jaw hung open.</p><p>The pure, unbridled joy that his fear sparked in her wolf would’ve scared her if she was capable of separating her thoughts in this state. Instead, her lips curled back into a snarl, drool dripping down her jaw. She growled, her teeth shining in the moonlight. Tensing her shoulders, Hermione shot herself forward, launching herself at him.</p><p>The anger that was swirling within her was controlling her. As a human, she was able to fight against her emotions and think rationally. But now – now the wolf was steering the ship. She was entirely unable to think as she bit deep into Lucius’s shoulder.</p><p>She gnawed down on his shoulder, his screams echoing in her ears, until she reached bone. Pulling backwards, her eyes locked on his face. His features so startingly similar to Draco’s and even as a wolf, it was hard to ignore. But there was a cruel coldness to the lines and edges of Lucius’s face that Draco’s tended to lack when he’s around her.</p><p>She’d definitely seen cruelty on Draco’s face, but when he was with her, the hardness disappeared. Hermione wasn’t sure anyone else had ever been able to see the soft curves of adoring smiles or the warm caressing gaze his eyes held when he looked at her. It was a shame. That was her favorite part of him, and he didn’t share it with anyone but her. But she also was glad no one else got to see it. It was special and only for her.</p><p>Lucius’s eyes were closed tightly, his face screwed up in pain and she found herself wanting to toy with him, the same way he promised he’d do to his son. She wasn’t sure that the violence and cruelty of the wolf was influencing this. She’d long learned that the wolf exists in the extremes. Fear becomes terror, admiration becomes obsession, anger becomes unbridled rage. But Lucius inspired much hatred even in her human form. She couldn’t blame it all on the wolf.</p><p>She dragged her tongue along the wound, tasting the blood that was spilling down his skin and pooling under his figure, mixing with the mud. <em>Mudblood</em>– ironic. A whimper of fear left Lucius and her ears snapped up at the noise.</p><p>“Please, spare me. Miss Granger, you’re not a killer, are you?”</p><p>Appealing to her morals. But her morals paled in comparison to the fire eating its way through her veins. She wanted him dead and she wanted him dead <em>now</em>.</p><p>A growl burned low in her throat and if a wolf could smile, a cold, cruel smirk would be painting her face. She was a killer; the war had done that to her.</p><p>Snapping her teeth in his face, she started to aim her snout towards his throat, preparing to rip his vocal cords out. She didn’t expect to be thrown off of him, a body colliding with her own as they tumbled onto the ground, rolling until she ended up underneath a hard body.</p><p>She snarled and lunged until she was above whoever charged at her. She growled and flashed her teeth toward the man until her eyes caught on the moonlight reflected at her. His silver eyes tracked her movements, waiting, watching.</p><p>He was lying-in wait, ready to respond to her actions, like they were in a dance and she was leading. Like he didn’t want to step on her toes. He was waiting for her to recognize him and react, wondering if she’d even recognize him in this state. But she’d spent so many full moons with him that his presence was comforting and familiar. She was sure she’d recognize him even if she was blind.</p><p>His hand reached out slowly, as if she might snap at it, sinking her teeth in. He’d be a werewolf too if she bit him at any point tonight – Lucius would also be one if she didn’t finish him off. His hand sunk into the fur on her neck and if she didn’t know him, she’d think it was to hurt her, but instead it slid up and caressed against her head, scratching her ear as he passed it.</p><p><em>Remember me</em>, it said. She heard it. She leaned her head into his hand to let him know that she was here, just under the surface.</p><p>“Granger, I know you’re in there. You can’t kill my father like this.”</p><p>He paused, waiting for a violent reaction.</p><p>“You’ll transform back come sunrise and you will hate yourself if you maul him. I want him dead too, but we’re going to take him back prisoner. They’ll be able to force information out him. It’s okay, please let me up, Granger.”</p><p>Hermione could hear his heartbeat and stilled as she realized how fast it was beating. She took in his appearance and noticed the cut across his forehead. He must’ve been grazed by a hex, the blood dripping down the side of his face was partially dried, it’s old. He looked tired, like the dueling had sucked the energy out of him, siphoning every drop until he was left exhausted, but still fighting. He must’ve ran across the active battlegrounds just to find her.</p><p>Maybe it was not the wolf that lived in the extremes. Maybe that was just love.</p><p>She slowly got off of Draco before hunching over Lucius, snarling in his face one more time for good measure.</p><p>“Hello, father,” Draco was leaning over his father and Hermione was startled once again by their similarities. Although, dark magic was seeping from the pores of the older Malfoy, the scent so pungent that her nose twitched. He was gaunt, overworked by his Dark Lord and continuously punished for his failures. Draco was just perfection. Even with dirt and smoke staining his skin and clothes, sweat messing up the perfect composure he normally held. Hair all over the place from dueling. He still looked perfect.</p><p>“Draco,” Lucius’s voice was a rasp, with a low gurgling noise muffling the sound.</p><p>“Granger, I’m taking him to headquarters and then I’ll be back.”</p><p>She wished she could reply. Instead, she waited for him to disappear and then she bounded away. The fight as still happening, after all. She could be of some use. Death Eaters weren’t so pleased with the idea of being half-breeds, so she had an advantage. They all would jump away from her if she got too close.</p><p>As she prowled through the battlefield, her nose twitching at the overwhelming smell of blood, she tried to find Harry or Ron or Ginny, there was no way they wouldn’t be here. Not with the death tolls at the numbers they were, not with the amount of chaos. Her eyesight had sharpened, and she could see better in the smog compared to before. She just hoped she’d see them if they were here.</p><p>Noticing a flash of red hair, Hermione turned towards it and ran. She leapt through the air and embedded her teeth into the throat of the death eater they were battling. When he slumped to the ground, she released him and turned back around, facing the redhead, which turned out to be Fred.</p><p>“Hermione?” His voice was full of confusion and she realized that none of the Weasleys nor Harry had seen her in wolf form. Just Draco. She tilted her head at him and let her ears relax, hoping her face came across as puppy-like it could when blood soaked the fur surrounding her mouth. She thanked the stars once more that her eyes were the same.</p><p>She approached him and let herself rest her shoulder against his leg. When he was assured it was her, he beckoned her to follow him as he led her towards the heart of the battle. Her heart began to beat faster than she thought it could when her eyes fell onto the werewolf that attacked her a year ago.</p><p>Her body tensed and she sinks down into a stalk, allowing her chest to brush against the grass as she slowly crawled towards him.</p><p>“Hermione, where are you going?”</p><p>She didn’t look back; she kept her eyes set on the man that created so much more havoc in her already chaotic life. He didn’t even glance in her direction, too busy hunting an unsuspecting Order member. Oh, how the tables have turned.</p><p>When she was close enough, she bounded towards him and flew through the air, knocking him onto his side, her teeth ripping into his shoulder. He howled in pain and they roll on the ground several times before she landed on her back, him on top of her. She thrashed under him, releasing a growl when he bared his teeth at her, blood dripping from his canines.</p><p>Shifting her weight, she twisted and pushed at him until she had the upper hand once more. She didn’t waste any time, sinking her teeth into his neck and ripping until his screams of anguish cease, until her attacker lay unmoving beneath her paws.</p><p>She didn’t think she’d ever like the taste of blood, but revenge tasted sweet.</p><p>She finished just in time to spot another redhead, one with longer hair. Ginny. And platinum blond next to her. They were both battling Voldemort. Her heart thumped with the realization that he was at the battle; this was the final battle. If so, that meant Harry had to be here, somewhere. Where was he?</p><p>Not wasting a second longer, Hermione swallowed harshly before charging towards the battling trio, right as the dark lord pointed his wand at Draco, his thin lips twisting into a sinister grin.</p><p>She didn’t think, she just lunged in front of Draco.</p><p> </p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <strong>---</strong>
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</p><p>He wasn’t fast enough to send a spell back towards Voldemort. He had jumped in to save Weaslette since Potter was off doing Merlin knows what, probably realized he hadn’t destroyed the last horcrux or some other bullshit.</p><p>Weaslette was sending curse after curse at his former Lord and he tried to cast one but then Voldemort’s gaze locked on him.</p><p>“Ah, the Malfoy whelp, have you seen your father, he said he had something for you,” his voice hissed across the battlefield and Draco had to suppress the urge to vomit.</p><p>“Sure did, Tom, sent him packing to the Order too.”</p><p>He watched as those red eyes narrowed on his figure and his bony hand raised his wand, aimed right at him. Draco raised his own and sent consecutive spells at the dark wizard, hoping one would hit its mark, but Voldemort dodged each of them.</p><p>Draco lunged to the side to attempt to avoid the blue light that came soaring in his direction, but before it could hit him, something obscured his vision. Brown fur, fur that he had come to recognize from all those full moons. His heart slammed against his sternum when Hermione’s wolf form landed in a heap on the ground.</p><p>Draco looked up to send a spell at Voldemort once more, even though all he wanted was to tend to Hermione, but the dark wizard was thoroughly engaged in a battle with Potter. Weaslette was now fighting some other death eater. He should help her, he really should, but she could hold her own. He also didn’t care about her at the moment, all he could focus on was the way brown fur was steadily turning red.</p><p>He dropped to his knees next to the wolf and his eyes connected with hers, the same in both wolf and human form. He couldn’t heal her as a wolf, he couldn’t talk to her or figure out what was wrong.</p><p>“I need a healer! Someone!” He hadn’t meant to start shouting, but he was.</p><p>His eyes hadn’t strayed from hers and he watched as she slowly transformed back into a human, something that he didn’t realize could happen on a full moon, when the moon was still high in the sky, not when she was still conscious. He conjured a blanket, so she wasn’t bare, but as he covered her, he realized her entire side was rotting.</p><p>Voldemort casted one of those experimental curses, one of the ones invented to kill, but painfully. It was slowly eating away at her. He started casting the basic healing spells he knows and cursed when none of them work.</p><p>“Draco,” she wheezed, her breath stuttering with each inhale, her entire left lung visible to his eyes.</p><p>“Shh, it’s okay, it’s okay, Granger, I can fix this, I can fix this.”</p><p>His chest was rising and fall in fast concessions, barely a pause in between each breath and he was steadily on his way to hyperventilating when he felt her hand rest against his face.</p><p>He casted more, struggling to remember other spells that might work. He put her under a numbing spell while he tries to fix her. She doesn’t need to be in pain. He doesn’t know how long this will take.</p><p>“Hey, you and I – “a cough, one that causes more blood to leak out the expanding wound on her side – “both know we can’t heal this. We were studying this curse, after Luna, we never figured it out.” Her voice was weak, and her eyes were dull as he looked down at her. <em>She was dying</em>.</p><p>“I need a healer! Ginny! Weasley! Lupin! Please.” His voice broke off into a whisper at the end, he knew no one can help him, it’s a miracle no stray curses have hit him or that a death eater hadn’t hexed him yet.</p><p>Her eyes can’t be dull. It’s Hermione Granger, even when he teased or named called in Hogwarts, the fire still burnt bright in those eyes. Eyes that swirled with honey in the light, eyes that shone like amber even in the darkness. Eyes that made fiendfyre look like a fledgling spark. They were a dull brown now, resembling the dirt she was laying in more than her. Her fire was leaving her as the curse ate at her.</p><p>“Draco, it’s okay.” She gave him a soft smile and his heart faltered at the sight of blood on her teeth. The curse had reached her stomach, blood was leaking up her esophagus.</p><p>He made to stand, to find someone, Pomfrey or one of the other Order healers, someone who can stabilize her so they can study the curse and fix her. He can’t lose her. But her hand locked around his ankle and he’s forced to look back at her and he can’t help when tears gather in the back of his throat, a sob wracking his body on its way out his mouth.</p><p>“Please, don’t leave me, I don’t want to die alone.”</p><p>He was surprised she could still talk, even though her voice was garbled and weak, he was surprised she wasn’t too weak. He should say no, run and find someone to help. But she was right, they can’t fix this curse, they lost Luna to it and hadn’t found a counter curse or treatment yet. It eats away at you until you die, no matter how many healing spells you perform or stasis charms you cast, it doesn’t stop until you’re dead.</p><p>But when a tear leaked out of the side of her face and tracked a trail down her temple to her ear, he stopped and crumbled next to her, holding her hand fiercely within his own. He shifted so he was sitting on the ground and pulled her into his lap, her limp body resting in his arms.</p><p>“You can’t, you can’t die, Granger, you can’t, you can’t. Please, please, please, don’t leave me. Hermione.” He’s begging now, he can’t help it. “Granger, you said forever, Hermione, forever hasn’t ended.”</p><p>“Draco, I gave you my forever.” He felt more than saw as she sucked in a large breath, her chest stuttering with the movement. “It’s okay, you’ll be okay. If I have to go, this is how I would want it. Here, with you, you alive. If you living means I have to die, that’s okay. I always knew if it came to it, you live, and I die.”</p><p>“Hermione, you promised, you promised me you wouldn’t pull this martyr shit, especially not for me. You promised.”</p><p>“No, I told you I couldn’t promise you that.”</p><p>A laugh – or a cry, he can’t really tell – jumped out of his throat and he was reduced to ashes beneath the prone body of the woman he loved. He couldn’t live without her; didn’t she know that? He chanced a glance towards her torso again and choked when he realized how much was eaten away and how close it was to her heart.</p><p>“Draco, you’ll be okay.”</p><p>“No, I won’t, not without you.”</p><p>“You have to be, find someone to love, have a life, have kids, I know you wanted them.”</p><p>“With you.” It was an important distinction, she had to know he only wanted those things with her.</p><p>“Draco, I love you, but please tell me you’ll try to be happy, please.”</p><p>He couldn’t, he couldn’t force the words out of his mouth, not when this was the first time she’d ever told him she loved him. He knew and he loved her, but they never got around to actually saying it. He shook his head and watched her through blurry vision.</p><p>“I love you, Draco Malfoy. I am so incredibly in love with you it’s almost funny.”</p><p>“Granger- “</p><p>“Say it back, you’ll regret it if you don’t.”</p><p>Her voice was getting weaker, her eyelids fluttering as if they’re too heavy to hold open.</p><p>“I love you, Hermione Granger, you had to have known by now, you stupid witch. I am more in love with you than I ever thought possible.”</p><p>He bit back a sob when she let out a puff air that he’s sure was meant to be a laugh.</p><p>“I knew, I just wanted to hear it.”</p><p>Her lips curved up into a soft pleased smile and her eyes closed fully and his muscles tensed, locking as he cups her face.</p><p>“Hermione, please, please don’t go, you can’t leave me.”</p><p>But she was already gone, her body went still, and the curse finally stopped eating away at her organs once it destroyed the most important one. Hermione Granger couldn’t exist without a heart, after all.</p><p>His head fell to rest against her forehead – still warm with life - and he was almost positive a despaired scream left his lips, but he couldn’t hear over the pounding of his heart and the fog hazing his brain. He collapsed into a heap, his magic exploding around him in a ring of cold fire, rumbling as it rippled through the ground.</p><p>That was how Potter found them. Hermione’s lifeless body still warm, Draco sobbing over her, his magic shielding them both, wrapping them in a bubble.</p><p>Potter fell onto his knees next to Draco, his hand squeezing the blond man’s shoulder. When Draco looked up, he saw the other man sobbing while his other hand grasped one of Hermione’s hands.</p><p>“I won. Voldemort is dead.”</p><p>“What for? The only thing worth all of this is gone.”</p><p>Potter’s hand squeezed his shoulder tighter and Draco had to fight the urge to break down again or to ask the man to Avada him so he could join the only woman he’s ever loved.</p><p>“It was all for nothing at all.”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Don't hate me...epilogue is next</p><p>This entire fic was inspired by "Murders" by Miracle Musical and the "all for nothing at all" part stuck out to me. I wanted to write something that just had so much fight and so much hope and they end up winning, but when it comes to it, was the sacrifice worth it? so you can blame my music inspiration for the sad ending. I'm thinking of writing an extra happy one shot to make up for it</p>
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<a name="section0005"><h2>5. [epilogue]</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <strong>1 Day After</strong>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>Draco Lucius Malfoy learned many things growing up in a pureblood aristocracy.</p><p>From his father, he learned how to stand tall and proud, how to best embody the Malfoy name. He learned what was considered weak, including admitting to faults and accepting when you’re in the wrong. Weak was anything that wasn’t being the best, best at Quidditch, best in the class, Prefect, Head Boy, before taking over the family business.</p><p>He had never quite fulfilled that role. He wasn’t best at Quidditch, he lost to Harry every time, his arrogance causing his downfall each match. He wasn’t best in his classes, and second was the first to lose. He was Prefect, sure, but Head Boy hadn’t happened, his years at Hogwarts stolen by the war.</p><p>He was supposed to be the best prodigal Death Eater, he was <em>chosen</em>. But he couldn’t even kill Dumbledore when tasked to do so and he faltered and <em>cried</em>in front of the deceased Headmaster. His father would’ve disowned him on spot if he had seen it.</p><p>From his aunt, he learned many things. Many cruel things. The unforgiveables, how best to cast a <em>crucio</em>, the way that would ensure the most pain. He learned how to torture, how to embrace the insanity within. The insanity Draco isn’t sure he doesn’t have. No, at the moment, he’s sure there’s too much madness within his bloodline. It’ll destroy him if he doesn’t do it himself first.</p><p>From godfather and favorite professor – though he would’ve denied it if the man was still alive – he learned how to control and maintain himself. Occlumency. Something that saved his life on many occasions. He learned how to block and prevent any raiding of his mind, even under torture. He learned how to build walls and file away memories that needed to be hidden. He learned how to maintain the coldness that a Malfoy was supposed to have, to hide the fear that wracked his soul every day the Dark Lord resided within the Manor. He owed his life to the man, not that there was much to living anymore.</p><p>From his mother, he learned how to glide, how to walk and talk and breathe aristocracy. She was the epitome of the perfect pureblood wife and he was supposed to want a woman exactly like her when it was time to marry. He learned how to love from her, though. She taught him how to embrace the emotions that he was supposed to deny. She showed him how give his entire heart to those he loved, telling him how love was a strength.</p><p>She didn’t warn him that it was also a weakness. She didn’t warn him that when the one he gave his entire heart to was gone, that he would have nothing left.</p><p>She taught him that what made a person was their heart, but she didn’t warn him that that meant giving your heart to the one you loved meant you were giving them everything you were, everything you are, everything you will be, everything you could be.</p><p>He learned more things when he abandoned that aristocracy.</p><p>From Potter, he learned forgiveness and second chances. The scarred man was almost never in the same safehouse as him, off on the hunt for the horcruxes, but when they were together, they learned how they each had changed and grown. Draco had apologized multiple times, ignoring the pain that echoed in his mind at ignoring his father’s advice, and Potter accepted each one and even offered one of his own. They created an unlikely friendship.</p><p>From Longbottom, Draco learned how to be accepting and brave. It almost made him throw up in his mouth when he thought about the man he used to consider a faulty Gryffindor, the hat fucked up, he belonged in Hufflepuff. But Longbottom proved unyieldingly brave in every situation. Not just the war, but when he had to break up fights between the kid soldiers with too much at stake and too much anger to tolerate. When he ignored the anger of his fellow DA members to befriend and forgive Draco had to be the bravest thing Longbottom had done. Draco didn’t care about the acts of heroism he did in the war, becoming the blond’s friend was Longbottom’s bravest feat.</p><p>From Lupin, he learned how to embrace the slander and the lies and the rumors that would be thrown at his back. He shared stories of how as a man who knew nothing except being a werewolf in a society that didn’t accept that, he learned how to continue to be himself, even when he was in pain and would rather be nothing. He took him under his wing when he joined the Order, when he defected and abandoned everything that he knew. He told him about Sirius Black, how he defied everything his family raised him to be, that he did it earlier than him, sure, but that the man would’ve loved Draco. Draco wasn’t so sure, his aunt did kill the man, after all. He hadn’t even become a Death Eater at that point.</p><p>Lupin was the reason he survived being a Phoenix. It was so bloody Gryffindor-esque, but the man told him how he didn’t have to be “stupidly courageous” as Draco put it, showing him how to put his own strengths to help their side win, he showed him how to embrace his cunning for good.</p><p>He trusted him. He was also the reason he found someone to love. Lupin was the tilting point in his relationship with Granger. He found Granger because of him. He was dead now too.</p><p>From Granger, well, he learned too many things to describe.</p><p>He learned how to be a better person, even if his motivation for doing so was to try and deserve her. He learned how to show he cared for his friend, even if it was in his own snarky way. She showed how it wouldn’t kill him to let people in, to let people care about him, to let people love the real him.</p><p>He learned how it felt to be loved by her and it was exquisite. She lived without glamours, she couldn’t keep herself hidden and she didn’t try to change who she was for anyone. He would tease her for her bleeding heart, but when it bled for him, he understood. He understood why Potter and Weasley were so protective of her, he understood why she was the Golden Girl, and it wasn’t because of her spot within the trio. She glowed on her own and she lit up the darkness in his own fragile heart.</p><p>He should’ve put money on it. Bet that letting people in would be the death of him because he let her in and now, he was sure he wouldn’t wake the next time he fell asleep.</p><p>He learned how to love the stupidest smartest witch there was, not just of their generation. He was able to get look past the hero complex as big as her hair and begin to love her for it. She taught him how to allow his heart to bleed a little too, but it never bled as much as hers did, it only bled for her. Hers bled for the house elves and the dragons and the hippogriffs and every single Order member she became responsible for. His only bled for her.</p><p>He learned how to enjoy little moments of happiness, like stolen moments in the middle of the night when they took their tea outside with only the company of the stars or when they would read together on that old, lumpy couch.</p><p>His mother taught him how to love, but she didn’t tell him how it would take his world by storm. Granger became everything he fought for. He only wanted her; he fought the war as hard as he could for her. She was his lighthouse in the storm.</p><p>His mother hadn’t warned him how much loving someone would hurt, but maybe that was only the case with Granger. He had tried to make her promise, she wasn’t to risk her life for him, she had to live, she was to survive this war. She couldn’t become a martyr; she didn’t need to die for the cause, and she was under no circumstances allowed to die for him.</p><p>She didn’t even stick around as a ghost, he looked everywhere on the battlefield for her, thinking maybe he would see her floating around watching over him or Potter or even one of the Weasleys. But he knew she didn’t have any regrets; she had always told him she didn’t expect to make it out of the war alive. He supposed her moving on was a good thing, but he selfishly hoped to see her one last time.</p><p>He shouldn’t be surprised; she had always been stubborn and thick skulled. Did he really expect her to listen? He should’ve made her take an Unbreakable Vow.</p><p>More than that, he should’ve been quicker, pushed her behind him when she jumped to take the spell instead of him. But she had quicker reflexes than him too. Add it to the list of things she bested him at.  </p><p>She taught him things he hadn’t even thought he needed to be taught.</p><p>But he was sure that she was the only one that could teach him how to live without her.</p><p>With her gone, who was left to teach him?</p><p>Who could teach him how to breathe and walk and blink and eat when she wasn’t there? Who was there to show him how refill the empty shell he has become? To love her was to give everything you are to her and she took his heart with her when hers stopped beating.</p><p>Without a heart, who was a person, really? Was he expected to continue living without one?</p><p>Hermione Jean Granger was dead.</p><p>Hermione Jean Granger was Draco Lucius Malfoy’s heart. And she was dead. He might as well be too.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>so...this is the end! I hope if you read this to the end, you enjoyed it! Thank you for reading!</p>
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